Telomeres are shorter in wild Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolates than in domesticated ones

Telomeres are ribonucleoproteins that cap chromosome-ends and their DNA length is controlled by counteracting elongation and shortening processes. The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been a leading model to study telomere DNA length control and dynamics. Its telomeric DNA is maintained at a length that slightly varies between laboratory strains, but little is known about its variation at the species level. The recent publication of the genomes of over 1000 S. cerevisiae strains enabled us to explore telomere DNA length variation at an unprecedented scale. Here, we developed a bioinformatic pipeline (YeaISTY) to estimate telomere DNA length from whole-genome-sequences and applied it to the sequenced 1011 S. cerevisiae collection. Our results revealed broad natural telomere DNA length variation among the isolates. Notably, telomere DNA length is shorter in those derived from wild rather than domesticated environments. Wild isolates are enriched in loss-of-function mutations in genes known to regulate telomere DNA length and the return of domesticated yeasts to a wild habitat coincides with shorter telomeres. Moreover, telomere DNA length variation is associated with mitochondrial metabolism, and this association is driven by wild strains. Overall, these findings suggest that budding yeasts’ telomere DNA length regulation might be shaped by ecological life-styles.