Résumé
Understanding aging is a grand challenge in biology. Exceptionally long-lived animals have mechanisms that underpin extreme longevity. Telomeres are protective nucleotide repeats on chromosome tips that shorten with cell division, potentially limiting life span. Bats are the longest-lived mammals for their size, but it is unknown whether their telomeres shorten. Using >60 years of cumulative mark-recapture field data, we show that telomeres shorten with age in
and
, but not in the bat genus with greatest longevity,
. As in humans, telomerase is not expressed in
blood or fibroblasts. Selection tests on telomere maintenance genes show that
and
, which repair and prevent DNA damage, potentially mediate telomere dynamics in
bats. Twenty-one telomere maintenance genes are differentially expressed in
, of which 14 are enriched for DNA repair, and 5 for alternative telomere-lengthening mechanisms. We demonstrate how telomeres, telomerase, and DNA repair genes have contributed to the evolution of exceptional longevity in
bats, advancing our understanding of healthy aging.