Telomerase activity in `immortal' fish1We dedicate this publication to E.S. Quabius. This study would have been impossible without her initiating ideas.1

AbstractEukaryotic chromosome termini consist of telomeres, short sequence repeats. According to the telomere hypothesis, DNA replication leads to telomere shortening, resulting in a cellular mitotic clock. Telomerase resets it by telomere synthesis. In mammals with a limited growth phase, telomerase activity in somatic tissues is restricted to stem cell derivatives with high proliferation potential. But other animals, like some fish, grow throughout their life with little senescence. All somatic cells require a high proliferation capacity and telomerase should be active in all cells, irrespective of fish age. Indeed, we detected high telomerase activities in all analyzed organs of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

Longevity of lobsters is linked to ubiquitous telomerase expression

AbstractMammals have high growth rates in embryonic and juvenile phases and no growth in adult and senescent phases. We analyzed telomerase activity in a fundamentally different animal which grows indeterminately. Lobsters (Homarus americanus) grow throughout their life and the occurrence of senescence is slow. A modified TRAP assay was developed and the lobster telomeric repeat sequence TTAGG was determined. We detected telomerase activities which were dependent on RNA and protein components, required dGTP, dATP and dTTP, but not dCTP. Telomerase products with a five nucleotide periodicity were generated. High telomerase activities were detected in all lobster organs. We conclude that telomerase activation is a conserved mechanism for maintaining long-term cell proliferation capacity and preventing senescence, not only in cellular models or embryonic life stages but also in adult multicellular organisms

Two Hundred Years After Once Upon a Time: The Legacy of the Brothers Grimm and Their Tales in Germany

Because there have been excellent studies about the influence and heritage of the Grimms’ tales up to 1990—I am thinking here of Donald Haase’s edited book The Reception of Grimms’ Fairy Tales—in this essay I focus on the legacy of the Grimms’ tales in the German sociocultural context of the last twenty years. I discuss some of the more recent popular manifestations of their stories in German literature and film and then move on to an analysis of scholarly studies that, in contrast to popular culture, have grounded the legacy of the Grimms in substantial ways. In the conclusion I argue that English-speaking scholars who study the Grimms’ fairy tales should be paying more attention to the inter- relationship between philology and narratology in the Grimms’ collection of folktales