METHODS AND REAGENTS FOR THE DETERMINATION OF TELOMERE LENGTH IN A SEMI-AUTOMATIC MANNER OF EVERY SINGLE CELL IN A IMMOBILIZED CELL POPULATION

摘要

The invention relates to methods and reagents for the determination oftelomere length in tissue sections by the singlecell telomeric mapping technique based on a fluorescent in situ hybridizationstep using a telomere-specific probe and an interpolationstep using a standard curve correlating fluorescent intensity and telomerelength obtained from a collection of cell lines ofknown telomere length. The invention further relates to methods for theidentification of stem cell niches within tissues and for theidentification of compounds capable of triggering stem cell mobilization usingthe telomere length as criteria for the identificationof stem cells and which rely on the single cell telomeric mapping technique ofthe invention.