ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2012
Telomere maintenance and telomerase activity are differentially regulated in asexual and sexual worms.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 123 citations in OpenAlex.
- Conditional Senescence and Longevity Mechanisms in Early-Branching Metazoans: Insights fromCurrent issues in molecular biology · 2026Article
- Regeneration: A planarian DIY fertility restoration guide.Current biology : CB · 2026Article
- Drift of positional identity drives reproductive aging in a long-lived regenerative animal.Current biology : CB · 2026Article
- Telomerase expression and activity in the immortal cnidarian Hydra.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Article
- Regeneration leads to global tissue rejuvenation in aging sexual planarians.Nature aging · 2025Article
- Systemic identification and characterization of the conserved core NuRD complex in planarian.Frontiers in aging · 2025Article
- Agelessness is possible under the disposable soma theory but system complexity makes it unlikely.Journal of theoretical biology · 2024Article
- Telomeres and telomerase: active but complex players in life-history decisions.Biogerontology · 2024Review
- Inflammation and aging: signaling pathways and intervention therapies.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2023Review
- Seasonal variation in telomerase activity and telomere dynamics in a hibernating rodent, the garden dormouse (Frontiers in physiology · 2023Article
- Periodic ethanol supply as a path toward unlimited lifespan ofFrontiers in aging · 2023Article
- Is Aging an Inevitable Characteristic of Organic Life or an Evolutionary Adaptation?Biochemistry. Biokhimiia · 2022Review
- Article
- A pan-metazoan concept for adult stem cells: the wobbling Penrose landscape.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Article
- Analysis of DNA Double-Stranded Breaks Using the Comet Assay in Planarians.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Alternative splicing is a developmental switch for hTERT expression.Molecular cell · 2021Article
- Alternative Splicing of Human Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (hTERT) and Its Implications in Physiological and Pathological Processes.Biomedicines · 2021Review
- Long-lived termite kings and queens activate telomerase in somatic organs.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Alternative Animal Models of Aging Research.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2021Review
- The Evolution of the Hallmarks of Aging.Frontiers in genetics · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
In most sexually reproducing animals, replication and maintenance of telomeres occurs in the germ line and during early development in embryogenesis through the use of telomerase. Somatic cells generally do not maintain telomere sequences, and these cells become senescent in adults as telomeres shorten to a critical length. Some animals reproduce clonally and must therefore require adult somatic mechanisms for maintaining their chromosome ends. Here we study the telomere biology of planarian flatworms with apparently limitless regenerative capacity fueled by a population of highly proliferative adult stem cells. We show that somatic telomere maintenance is different in asexual and sexual animals. Asexual animals maintain telomere length somatically during reproduction by fission or when regeneration is induced by amputation, whereas sexual animals only achieve telomere elongation through sexual reproduction. We demonstrate that this difference is reflected in the expression and alternate splicing of the protein subunit of the telomerase enzyme. Asexual adult planarian stem cells appear to maintain telomere length over evolutionary timescales without passage through a germ-line stage. The adaptations we observe demonstrate indefinite somatic telomerase activity in proliferating stem cells during regeneration or reproduction by fission, and establish planarians as a pertinent model for studying telomere structure, function, and maintenance.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.