Telomere length, telomerase and maintenance of stem cells in the adult zebrafish brain [Elektronische Ressource] / Susanne Sprungala
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Telomere length, telomerase and maintenance of stem cells in the adult zebrafish brain [Elektronische Ressource] / Susanne Sprungala

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Publié par
Publié le 01 janvier 2009
Nombre de lectures 16
Langue English
Poids de l'ouvrage 9 Mo

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TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN

Lehrstuhl für Entwicklungsgenetik


Telomere length, telomerase and maintenance of stem cells in
the adult zebrafish brain

Susanne Sprungala




Vollständiger Abdruck der von der Fakultät Wissenschaftszentrum Weihenstephan
für Ernährung, Landnutzung und Umwelt der Technischen Universität München zur
Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines

Doktors der Naturwissenschaften

genehmigten Dissertation.



Vorsitzender: Univ.-Prof. Dr. E. Grill

Prüfer der Dissertation: 1. Univ.-Prof. Dr. W. Wurst
2. Univ.-Prof. Dr. K. Schneitz




Die Dissertation wurde am 10.06.2009 bei der Technischen Universität München
eingereicht und durch die Fakultät Wissenschaftszentrum Weihenstephan für
Ernährung, Landnutzung und Umwelt am 25.10.2009 angenommen.



























For my family



Acknowledgments

First of all, I want to thank Dr. Laure Bally-Cuif and Dr. Prisca Chapouton for their
great support and supervision during the last years. I deeply appreciate that they
always had time for me for small and big questions and discussions. Furthermore,
both gave me the opportunity to develop my own ideas and experimental approaches
in this new aspect of neural stem cell research.

Next, I want to thank Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wurst for his support, supervision and the
opportunity to conduct my PhD project in an encouraging atmosphere at the Institute
of Developmental Genetics at the Helmholtz Center Munich.

Of course I want to say many, many “Thanks!” to all my colleagues in the laboratory!

I thank Silvia and Anja for their expert support with experiments. Thanks also for
many discussions on how to solve seemingly unsolvable practical problems and
providing good music.

I am grateful to Birgit T., Steffi T. and Gitte for their experimental support and
introducing me into the magic of lab routines.

Thanks to Prisca, I did not feel so isolated when approaching a new field of stem cell
maintenance and adult neurogenesis. Thanks for being a great supervisor.

Birgit A., Christian, Christoph, Karin, Katharina, Katharine, Marion, Paulina, Steffi S.,
Stina and Will, I want to thank you all for the many discussions, for your open ears,
for collaborations and being great bench neighbours.

To our secretaries Regina, Martina, Eva and also the IDG secretaries I am very
grateful for helping me through the jungle of bureaucracy and the many orderings.

I want to say many thanks to the ‘Fish facility crew’ for keeping my fish happy - and
for discussing the decisions of the KiTa!
Furthermore, I want to thank the scientific environment at the IDG and neighboring
institutes: In particular Chichung Lie (also for the great support with applications) and
his lab, Reinhard Köster and his lab for great assistance with confocal-imaging,
especially Martin, and all the other people at the IDG, present and past, with whom I
have been collaborating and discussing.

I am very grateful to Prof. K.L. Rudolph for giving me the opportunity to learn the
essential telomere/ telomerase techniques in his lab in Hannover and Ulm.
Especially, I want to thank Dr. André Lechel and Karin Kleinhans for their amazing
teaching skills, expertise and patience, even as my belly grew.

Am Ende möchte ich noch ganz besonders meiner Mama, meinen zwei Männern,
meiner Schwester und ihrer Familie und meinen vier Großeltern danken! Also my
family in Down Under, for letting their oldest son come with me to Germany. Und
meinen Papi, der immer an mich glaubte. Sie alle haben mich stets tatkräftig
unterstützt und mir immer wieder Mut gemacht. Vielen, vielen Dank!


Abstract

Stem cell can be found throughout an animal’s life. In numerous vertebrates adult
neural stem cells were identified and their decrease with age was shown. The
mechanisms of stem cell maintenance and depletion are incompletely understood.
Telomerase activity is involved in the maintenance of dividing cell populations,
avoiding their chromosomal telomere attrition and senescence, it might be implicated
in the regulation of neural stem cell populations.
The main aim of my PhD project is to contribute to the understanding of the
processes of how telomerase activity and telomere length determine and maintain
adult neural stem cell pools throughout life. Towards this aim, I used the zebrafish as
a model system in which proliferation and neurogenesis in the adult brain have been
demonstrated to be widespread, although restricted to discrete foci. My focus laid on
label-retaining cells of the telencephalic ventricle and a stem cell population in the
posterior midbrain expressing the transcription factor Her5.
First, to set the basis for a further assessment of telomerase influence on neural
stem cell, I showed that telomerase is active during development and in the adult
brain of zebrafish. Following this demonstration, I characterized the expression of
telomerase in the zebrafish brain and found that the telomerase components, tert and
TR, are expressed in neurogenic zones with a high co-expression found with
proliferating cells. Few cells of the radial glia population in telencephalon, containing
progenitor cells, and the Her5 stem cell population of the midbrain co-express
telomerase. The expression of three telomerase interacting partners, pinX1, mkrn1
and pot1, was localized in areas overlapping with telomerase expression. Further on,
I measured the telomere length of distinct cell populations at the single cell level
applying the QFISH technique. My data suggests that the telomere length is
maintained in quickly dividing cells (express the proliferation marker PCNA), label-
retaining cells (remain in cycle three months after BrdU incorporation), radial glia
cells and the her5-expressing stem cell population of the adult zebrafish brain. In
mouse brain sections, I could confirm that the stem cell have significantly longer
telomeres than their descendant progenitors and the differentiated granule cells.
During the aging process, the telomere length of proliferating and the Her5 stem cells
showed no significant decline, despite a visible occurrence of aging as seen by the
I
senescence-associated β-galactosidase staining. Finally, I analyzed the potential
influence of telomerase on the proliferative potential of the progenitor pool in the
embryo. A role of telomerase in a loss-of-function experiment could not be confirmed.
However, the newly identified Tert-deficient mutant (Tert2A; possible null mutation of
the tert gene) will allow detailed analysis of how telomerase influences stem cell
maintenance and proliferation.
Taken together, my PhD project provides a first description of telomerase activity,
telomerase expression and telomere length in distinct cell populations of the adult
zebrafish brain which provides a basis for the usage of zebrafish as a model system
for adult neurogenesis, aging and telomere/ telomerase research.
II

Zusammenfassung

Stammzellen können während des gesamten Lebens eines Tieres gefunden werden.
In verschiedenen Wirbeltieren wurden im Gehirn neurale Stammzellen identifiziert
und es konnte gezeigt werden, dass ihre Anzahl und Aktivität während des
Alterungsprozesses abnimmt. Die Mechanismen, die zur Stammzellerhaltung und
ihrem Abbau beitragen, sind unvollständig untersucht. Beim Erhalt von sich teilenden
Zellpopulationen ist Telomeraseaktivität involviert, wobei sie den Abbau von
Telomeren der Chromosome und so Seneszenz verhindert. Daher ist es möglich,
dass die Telomerase auch in den Fortbestand von neuralen Stammzellpopulationen
involviert ist.
Das Hauptziel meiner Doktorarbeit lag darin näher zu verstehen, wie
Telomeraseaktivität und Telomerelänge den Erhalt des neuralen Stammzellvorrates
im Erwachsenen lebenslang ermöglichen. Ich verwendete den Zebrafish als
Modellorganismus, da dieser im Gegensatz zu Säugetieren, Zellteilung und
Neurogenese in vielen aber begrenzten Stellen im adulten Gehirn zeigt. Mein
Schwerpunkt lag dabei auf BrdU-markierungserhaltenden („BrdU label-retaining“)
Zellen des Vorderhirn-Ventrikels und einer kleinen Stammzellpopulation im hinteren
Mittelhirnbereich, die den Transkriptionsfaktor Her5 exprimiert.
Als erstes wurde als Basis die Telomeraseaktivität während der Entwicklung und im
adulten Gehirn vom Zebrafisch bestimmt. Anschließend habe ich die Expression der
Telomerase im Zebrafischgehirn untersucht, und stellte fest, dass beide Telomerase-
Komponenten, tert und TR in neurogenen Zonen exprimiert sind. Es konnte eine
starke Expression der Telomerase in sich-teilenden Zellen des Vorderhirns und des
hinteren Mittelhirns gefunden werden. Einige Zellen der radiale Glia im Vorderhirn,
die Vorläufe

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