Investigating the role of G-quadruplexes at Saccharomyces cerevisiae telomeres

Authors:

Sonia Stinus1, Fernando R. Rosas Bringas1, Lisa Wanders1, and Michael Chang1

doi: 10.15698/mic2022.06.778
Volume 9, pp. 126 to 132, published 19/05/2022.

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Affiliations:

1European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

Keywords: 

telomere, G-quadruplex, budding yeast, tlc1-tm, Cdc13, Pif1, Saccharomycotina

Corresponding Author(s):

Michael Chang, European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands m.chang@umcg.nl

Conflict of interest statement:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Please cite this article as:

Sonia Stinus, Fernando R. Rosas Bringas, Lisa Wanders, and Michael Chang (2022). Investigating the role of G-quadruplexes at Saccharomyces cerevisiae telomeres. Microbial Cell: 9(6):126-132. doi: 10.15698/mic2022.06.778

© 2022 Stinus et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.

Abstract:

The G-quadruplex consensus motif G≥3NxG≥3NxG≥3NxG≥3 is found at telomeres of many species, ranging from yeast to plants to humans, but the biological significance of this fact remains largely unknown. In this study, we examine the in vivo relevance of telomeric G-quadruplexes in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae by expressing a mutant telomerase RNA subunit (tlc1-tm) that introduces mutant [(TG)0–4TGG]xATTTGG telomeric repeats instead of wild-type (TG)0-6TGGGTGTG(G)0-1 repeats to the distal ends of telomeres. The tlc1-tm telomere sequences lack the GGG motif present in every wild-type repeat and, therefore, are expected to be impaired in the formation of G-quadruplexes. Circular dichroism analysis of oligonucleotides consisting of tlc1-tm telomeric sequence is consistent with this hypothesis. We have previously shown that tlc1-tm cells grow similarly to wild-type cells, suggesting that the ability to form telomeric G-quadruplexes is not essential for telomere capping in S. cerevisiae cells.