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Assessing T Lymphocyte Aging Using Telomere Length and Telomerase Activity Measurements in Low Cell Numbers

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In Vitro Differentiation of T-Cells

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2048))

Abstract

As T lymphocytes proliferate and differentiate in vivo or in vitro, their functional capacity can change dramatically. In particular, extensive cell division is often associated with telomere shortening and the onset of cellular senescence, thus impacting the proliferative potential of the cells. Telomere length and integrity represent therefore key molecular markers of the status and aging of the cells. To assess these markers, we established qPCR-based methods to measure telomere length as well as telomerase activity, applied to low cell numbers, which is necessary when working with rare or small subsets of T lymphocytes.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Olivier Pelle from the flow cytometry platform of the Imagine Institute in Paris for assistance with single-cell sorting. This work was supported by the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (FRM) (Project DEQ20120323690), the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche sur le SIDA (ANRS, Project N14007DR), and the INSERM transversal research program on aging (Project AGEMED). Victor Appay and Delphine Sauce contributed equally to this work.

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Correspondence to Victor Appay .

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Fali, T., K’Ros, C., Appay, V., Sauce, D. (2019). Assessing T Lymphocyte Aging Using Telomere Length and Telomerase Activity Measurements in Low Cell Numbers. In: Kaneko, S. (eds) In Vitro Differentiation of T-Cells. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2048. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9728-2_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9728-2_18

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  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-9727-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-9728-2

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