Interaction of the mTERT telomerase catalytic subunit with the c-Abl tyrosine kinase in mouse granulosa cells

Abstract

Context: Oocyte and granulosa cells (GCs) have bidirectional communication and GCs play an important role in folliculogenesis and proliferation of GCs is very important for the development of ovulatory follicle. DNA double-strand breaks activate c-Abl protein tyrosine kinase and c-Abl has a functional role in repairement of DNA and control of telomere.

Objective: In this study, we hypothesized that c-Abl has a regulative role on mTERT in mouse ovarian granulosa cells (GCs) and we aimed to detect c-Abl and mTERT interaction in mouse primary culture of GCs.

Materials and methods: Mouse ovarian granulosa cell were cultured and siRNA-mediated knockdown approach was used to knockdown c-Abl expression.

Results: We showed c-Abl and mTERT immunolocalization in vivo and in vitro mouse GCs. c-Abl and mTERT were constitutively expressed in mouse granulosa cells and c-Abl presented more intense expression in granulosa cells than mTERT expression. The interaction of the c-Abl-mTERT is supported by the exhibition that c-Abl siRNA knockdown cells show decreased mTERT expression. We also present an interaction between c-Abl and mTERT by immunoprecipitation. In addition, our results indicated that the down-regulation of c-Abl was also accompanied by reduced expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) in GCs.

Conclusions: We suggest that mTERT may associate with the c-Abl in mouse GCs and the interactions between c-Abl and mTERT suggest a role for c-Abl in the regulation of telomerase function and proliferation in mouse granulosa cells.

Keywords:

• c-Abl
• mTERT
• mouse
• granulosa cells

Ethical approval

Ethics approval and consent to participate: The animal protocols used in this study were approved of Yeditepe University Ethical Committee of Animal Experiments by the Institute Animal Care and Use Committee of Yeditepe University.

Author contributions

A.Y. conceived and coordinated the study, performed and analyzed experiments, and wrote the paper. S.A., C.E. and E.Y. performed experiments. B.Y. contributed to analyze the experiments.

Consent for publication

All authors have consent for publishing this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project is supported by TÜBİTAK [#111S446].