- 著者
- Hideo Hatase Ryusuke Sudo Kunihiro K. Watanabe Takashi Kasugai Tomomi Saito Hitoshi Okamoto Itaru Uchida Katsumi Tsukamoto
- 出版者
- 日本遺伝学会
- 雑誌
- Genes & Genetic Systems (ISSN:13417568)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.83, no.5, pp.423-426, 2008 (Released:2009-01-24)
- 参考文献数
- 19
- 被引用文献数
- 8 19
We verified whether telomere length shortens with age in the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) by measuring telomere lengths (relative telomere to single copy gene [T/S] ratios) in whole blood and epidermis from 20 captive individuals with a real-time PCR method. There was no significant correlation between age and relative T/S ratios in blood. Although the correlation between age and relative T/S ratios in epidermis was not significant, older turtles had smaller relative T/S ratios in epidermis. It was thus demonstrated that telomere length in epidermis could be a useful age estimator for sea turtles. Relative age information obtained with this simple, rapid, non-invasive technique may help to advance our understanding of the ecology of endangered sea turtles. This is the first publication on age-related changes in telomere length among chelonians.