10.5061/DRYAD.JDFN2Z38V
Power, Megan L.
0000-0001-7402-3254
University College Dublin
Power, Sarahjane
University College Dublin
Bertelsen, Mads F.
Center for Zoo and Wild Animal Health
Jones, Gareth
University of Bristol
Teeling, Emma C.
University College Dublin
Wing: A suitable non-lethal tissue type for repeatable and rapid telomere
length estimates in bats
Dryad
dataset
2020
relative telomere length
Tissues
Rousettus aegyptiacus
2020-09-24T00:00:00Z
2020-09-24T00:00:00Z
en
9921 bytes
2
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Telomeres are used increasingly in ecology and evolution as biomarkers for
ageing and environmental stress, and are typically measured from DNA
extracted from non-lethally sampled blood. However, obtaining blood is not
always possible in field conditions and only limited amounts can be taken
from small mammals, such as bats, which moreover lack nucleated red blood
cells and hence yield relatively low amounts of DNA. As telomere length
can vary within species according to age and tissue, it is important to
determine which tissues serve best as a representation of the organism as
a whole. Here, we investigated whether wing tissue biopsies, a rapid and
relatively non-invasive tissue collection method, could serve as a proxy
for other tissues when measuring relative telomere length (rTL) in the
Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus). Telomeres were measured from
blood, brain, heart, kidney, liver lung, muscle and wing, and multiple
wing biopsies were taken from the same individuals to determine
intra-individual repeatability of rTL measured by using qPCR. Wing rTL
correlated with rTL estimates from most tissues apart from blood. Blood
rTL was not significantly correlated with rTL from any other tissue. Blood
and muscle rTL were significantly longer compared with other tissues,
while lung displayed the shortest rTLs. Individual repeatability of rTL
measures from wing tissue was high (>76%). Here we show the
relationships between tissue telomere dynamics for the first time in a
bat, and our results provide support for the use of wing tissue for rTL
measurements.
Please see Materials & Methods of this paper for further details.
Individual_Tissues_DataDryad.csv Individual tissue z-score normalised
telomere data. Wing_Repeatability_DataDryad.csv Wing repeatability
z-score normalised telomere data.