Extraordinary diversity of telomeres, telomerase RNAs and their template regions in Saccharomycetaceae

0551301 - BFÚ 2022 RIV GB eng J - Journal Article
Peška, Vratislav - Fajkus, Petr - Bubeník, Michal - Brázda, Václav - Bohalova, Natalia - Dvořáček, Vojtěch - Fajkus, Jiří - Garcia, S.
Extraordinary diversity of telomeres, telomerase RNAs and their template regions in Saccharomycetaceae.
Scientific Reports. Roč. 11, č. 1 (2021), č. článku 12784. ISSN 2045-2322. E-ISSN 2045-2322
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT EF15_003/0000477; GA ČR(CZ) GX20-01331X
Institutional support: RVO:68081707
Keywords : dna end-replication * secondary structure * g-quadruplexes * sequences
OECD category: Biology (theoretical, mathematical, thermal, cryobiology, biological rhythm), Evolutionary biology
Impact factor: 4.997, year: 2021
Method of publishing: Open access
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92126-x

Telomerase RNA (TR) carries the template for synthesis of telomere DNA and provides a scaffold for telomerase assembly. Fungal TRs are long and have been compared to higher eukaryotes, where they show considerable diversity within phylogenetically close groups. TRs of several Saccharomycetaceae were recently identified, however, many of these remained uncharacterised in the template region. Here we show that this is mainly due to high variability in telomere sequence. We predicted the telomere sequences using Tandem Repeats Finder and then we identified corresponding putative template regions in TR candidates. Remarkably long telomere units and the corresponding putative TRs were found in Tetrapisispora species. Notably, variable lengths of the annealing sequence of the template region (1-10 nt) were found. Consequently, species with the same telomere sequence may not harbour identical TR templates. Thus, TR sequence alone can be used to predict a template region and telomere sequence, but not to determine these exactly. A conserved feature of telomere sequences, tracts of adjacent Gs, led us to test the propensity of individual telomere sequences to form G4. The results show highly diverse values of G4-propensity, indicating the lack of ubiquitous conservation of this feature across Saccharomycetaceae.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0326727