Techniques to analyse human telomeres are imperative in studying the molecular mechanism of ageing and related diseases. Two important aspects of telomeres are their length in DNA base pairs (bps), and their biophysical nanometer dimensions. However, there are currently no techniques that can simultaneously measure these quantities in individual cell nuclei. Here, we develop and evaluate a telomere "dual" gold nanoparticle-fluorescent probe simultaneously compatible with both X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and super resolution microscopy. We used silver enhancement to independently visualise the spatial locations of gold nanoparticles inside nuclei, comparing to a standard QFISH (quantitative fluorescence in-situ hybridisation) probe, and showed good specificity at ~90%. For sensitivity, we calculated telomere length based on a DNA:gold binding ratio using XRF, and compared to quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) measurements. The sensitivity was low (~10%), probably because of steric interference prohibiting the relatively large 10 nm gold nanoparticles access to DNA space. We then measured the biophysical characteristics of individual telomeres using super resolution microscopy. Telomeres that have an average length of ~10 kbps, have diameters ranging between ~60-300 nm. Further, we treated cells with a telomere-shortening drug, and showed there was a small but significant difference in telomere diameter in drug-treated vs control cells. We discuss our results in relation to the current debate surrounding telomere compaction.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 19. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 March 2019.
All research outputs
#2,381,660
of 32,409,613 outputs
Outputs from ACS Nano
#2,062
of 17,846 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#36,861
of 363,189 outputs
Outputs of similar age from ACS Nano
#41
of 247 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,409,613 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 92nd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 17,846 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.1. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 363,189 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 247 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its contemporaries.
