IMPROVED DETECTION AND COMPARATIVE SIZING OF HUMAN CHROMOSOMAL TELOMERES IN-SITU

Telomeric length dynamics an thought to play an important role both in the processes of cellular aging and cancer progression. We have revis ed the primed in situ (PRINS) labeling technique to allow an estimatio n of the relative length of individual telomeres. We illustrate the ap plicability of the approach by demonstrating different telomeric sizes not only between blood lymphocytes from a young and an old donor, but also among bone marrow cells from hematological cancer patients. In t he latter case we found general variations in telomeric sizes as well as individual telomeric variations that would have escaped detection b y other methods. An interesting finding was the selective expansion of a single telomere within a specific subset of cells.