TELOMERASE ACTIVITY IN NORMAL ADULT BROWN-NORWAY RAT SEMINAL-VESICLE - REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION AND AGE-DEPENDENT CHANGES

Telomerase activity is essential for protection of cells against the t elomere erosion that occurs with each round of cell replication, and t hus appears to play a role in the indefinite replication potential of some, but not all, eukaryotic cells. In this regard, some tissues cont ain stem cells that have a long proliferative life-span and are capabl e of regenerating or renewing the somatic epithelial cell population w ithin the tissue. Because the adult seminal vesicle exhibits the abili ty to regenerate during androgen-replacement after castration, we hypo thesized that a pool of cells with regenerating potential is present i n the adult seminal vesicle, which expresses telomerase activity. In t his study, we used a highly sensitive PCR-based telomerase assay [the telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) assay] to detect telome rase activity in rat seminal vesicle. Our results show that telomerase activity is, indeed, present in the normal adult rat seminal vesicle, but that, in the presence of seminal vesicle fluid, telomerase activi ty cannot be detected. In fact, seminal vesicle fluid was found to con tain some factor(s) that is inhibitory for the TRAP assay. In addition , we found that telomerase activity in the seminal vesicle changes wit h age and is regionally distributed within the distal, intermediate, a nd proximal segments of the duct. These results suggest that as is the case for the rat prostate, a population of telomerase-positive cells is present within the adult rat seminal vesicle, and thereby, this org an retains throughout life the potential to regenerate in response to androgen replacement following castration-induced apoptotic cell death .