Discussion
Telomere length has become an important tool for studying species’
response to environmental stress, and there is a growing need to
estimate telomere length rapidly and efficiently for model and non-model
organisms. Recent advances in WGS and bioinformatic approaches have
created new opportunities for telomere length assessment . In this
study, we used whole-genome resequencing data to estimate telomere
length for 100 Populus genotypes and compared our results to
traditional qPCR measurements. We identified three bioinformatic
approaches that were appropriate for telomere length assessments in
plants. While average telomere length estimates varied across
bioinformatic approaches, estimates for the same genotype across
approaches were strongly correlated (r = 0.86 to 0.99).
Furthermore, our results suggest that WGS provides a comparable approach
to estimating telomere length variation relative to traditional qPCR .
Indeed, correlation between telomere estimates for qPCR and WGS,
particularly where genome coverage is accounted for, suggests that
values are comparable. Our study demonstrates that WGS is an efficient
and rapid approach for assessing telomere length in plants. This has
potential applications for plant breeding and conservation management
where assessment of telomere length change acts as a biomarker to
indicate individuals response to environmental stress.