Gene expression data after acute withdrawal of TERT in mouse skin

TERT is an essential protein component of telomerase, a ribonuclearprotein complex that protects chromosomal ends. Ectopic expression of TERT in mouse skin activates hair follicle stem cells and induces active growth phase of hair cycles, called anagen. This activity of TERT is independent of its reverse transcriptase function, indicating that this is a non-telomeric function of TERT. We performed time-course microarray analysis using conditional bi-transgenic mice (iK5-TERT) to understand the mechanism of this novel non-telomeric function of TERT. Keywords: Time course, 2 cohorts (control, experimental) Hair follicles of iK5-TERT mice at postnatal day 60 is in TERT-induced anagen. To those mice, we injected either PBS, to maintain TERT transgene expression, or doxycycline, to rapidly extinguish transgene expression. We then took time-course dorsal skin biopsies (0,6,12,24 hr) of these mice and analyzed differential gene expressions using Affymetrix Genechips and various bioinformatic tools, including SAM, to discover TERT-regulated genes.

端粒酶逆转录酶（TERT）是端粒酶的必需蛋白组分，端粒酶是一类保护染色体末端的核糖核蛋白复合物。在小鼠皮肤中异位表达TERT，可激活毛囊干细胞并诱导毛发周期进入活跃生长阶段——即毛发生长期（anagen）。TERT的该活性与其逆转录酶功能无关，提示其存在非端粒依赖的功能。为阐明TERT这一新型非端粒依赖功能的作用机制，本研究利用条件性双转基因小鼠（iK5-TERT）开展时间序列芯片分析。关键词：时间序列、2个队列（对照组、实验组）。出生后第60天的iK5-TERT小鼠毛囊处于TERT诱导的毛发生长期。本研究对该类小鼠分别注射磷酸盐缓冲液（PBS）以维持TERT转基因表达，或注射多西环素以快速终止转基因表达。随后采集这些小鼠0、6、12、24小时四个时间点的背部皮肤活检样本，利用Affymetrix基因芯片及包括显著性分析微阵列（SAM）在内的多种生物信息学工具分析差异基因表达谱，以筛选受TERT调控的基因。