The Bazhen decoction facilitated the telomere elongation
The above data indicate that Bazhen decoction could facilitate the resolving of G4 structure, which is known to be abundant structure in telomere DNA, thus Bazhen decoction might facilitate telomere DNA replication and elongation. To verify this, we performed real-time PCR to compare the relative amount of telomere DNA before and after Bazhen decoction treatment. The results showed that the telomere DNA increased significantly after Bazhen decoction treatment (p<0.01) (Figure 5, A). We further performed immunofluorescence together with fluorescence in situ hybridization (IF-FISH) to detect the recruitment of DNA helicase to telomere DNA. Consistent with the real-time PCR data, IF-FISH data showed that the DNA helicase Recql4 and Blm were up-regulated (Figure 5, B, C, Recql4, Blm), and the telomere DNA signals significantly increased after Bazhen decoction treatment (Figure 5, B, C, Telomere), the colocalization of DNA helicase Recql4 with telomere DNA increased (Figure 5, B, C, Telomere & Recql4, white arrows), same with the Blm (Figure 5, B, C, Telomere & Blm, white arrows). These data suggest that Bazhen decoction up-regulated DNA helicases and also facilitated the recruitment of DNA helicases to the telomere DNA, which might promote G4 structure resolving and telomere elongation.