Fig. 4: Increased telomerase activity does not lead to telomere length changes.
A. thaliana plants genetically engineered to over-express telomerase were analyzed for telomere length. a TRF results for Col-0 (n = 1), G4 tert (n = 1), T3 telomerase-complementation lines 8-3-2 (n = 3) and 7-4-2 (n = 3) and T3 super-telomerase lines 5-2-1 (n = 3) and 10-3-3 (n = 3). Each lane shows the data for an individual biological replicate of the genotype indicated. Q-TRAP performed with flower bundles from T2 plants indicated that lines 8-3-2 and 7-4-2 express 1x and 2x the wildtype levels of telomerase activity, respectively, while 5-2-1 and 10-3-3 express 31x and 135x the wildtype levels of telomerase activity, respectively (see Supplementary Fig. 4). b TRF results for biological replicates of Col-0 (n = 4), G2 tert (n = 4), G5 tert (n = 4), and the T4 5-2-1-C line (n = 4). Q-TRAP performed with flower bundles from 5-2-1-C indicated an ~20-fold increase in telomerase activity compared to wildtype (d). c Mean telomere length analyzed by WALTER for Col-0, G2 tert, G5 tert, T3 8-3-2, T3 7-4-2, T3 10-3-3, T3 5-2-1, and T4 5-2-1-C (data analyzed from Fig. 4a, b). Results shown as violin plots with p calculated as Brown-Forsythe ANOVA. d Relative telomerase activity measured by Q-TRAP of T4 super-telomerase lines 5-2-1-C (n = 5) and 10-3-3-F (n = 5) relative to the wildtype Col-0 control (n = 6). Technical replicates performed in triplicate. Within the boxplot, the middle line represents the median, box boundaries signify 25th and 75th percentiles, and whiskers the lowest and highest values. P calculated as one-way ANOVA, nCol-0 = 6, n5-2-1-C = 5, n10-3-3-F = 5, p5-2-1-C = 0.0279 and p10-3-3-F = 0.0003. Source data provided as Source Data File.
