To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report revealing that inhibition of TRF2 promotes T-cell telomere attrition and telomeric DNA damage that accelerates T-cell senescent and apoptotic programs, which contribute to naïve T-cell loss during viral infection.
Telomere attrition and chromosome instability via downregulation of TRF2 contributes to arsenic trioxide-induced apoptosis of human T-Cell leukemia cell line molt-4 cells.
Experimental induction of telomere damage through inhibition of the telomeric protein TRF2 recapitulates aspects of telomere attrition, including a p53-mediated cell cycle arrest.