Anecdotal Evidence and Links
If you still aren’t convinced, or if you are just want to hear more, consider this assorted list of interesting anecdotal tidbits
relating to the telomere theory, courtesy of Telomolecular, found here.
Age Correspondence
Geneticist Richard Cawthon and colleagues at the University of Utah found shorter
telomeres are associated with shorter lives. Among people older than 60, those with
shorter telomeres were three times more likely to die from heart disease and eight
times more likely to die from infectious disease.
Reproductive Cells
Human stem cells and reproductive cells replicate in a healthy stable manner throughout the human lifespan. They energetically replicate exact copies and do not experience
the same type of cellular damage understood as aging. The difference between these
"immortal" cells and the rest of our body is that the "immortal" cells produce telomerase.
Aging Mice
Mice lacking a gene for making telomeres were found to go gray, lose hair faster,
and recover less easily from the stress of surgery and chemotherapy than normal
animals. They also developed tumors and cancer more often and died earlier, a team
of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) researchers report in the March 5 Cell.
more info
Immune Cells
Immune cells that fight HIV are under constant strain to divide in order to continue
performing their protective functions. This massive amount of division shortens
these cells' telomeres prematurely,' explained Dr. Rita Effros, Plott Chair in Gerontology
and professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the David Geffen School of
Medicine at UCLA. "So the telomeres of a 40-year-old person infected with HIV resemble
those of a healthy 90-year-old person."
Faconi’s Anemia
The telomeres of affected patients present an accelerated shortening owing to
breakages in the telomeric DNA sequence, leading to chromosomes being unprotected
and joining together. This mechanism may explain patients’ tendency to contract
cancer. The research thus provides a first experimental link between a predisposition
to cancer with the mechanism of sudden shortening of telomeres. more info
Human Arteries Engineered
hTERT introduced into human SMCs resulted in cells that proliferated far beyond
their normal lifespan but retained characteristics of normal control SMCs (no cancer).
Importantly, using these non-neonatal SMCs, Dr. J. McKee and colleagues were able to engineer mechanically robust human vessels, a crucial step towards creating arteries of clinical value for bypass surgery. more info
Mice Grow Hair
Scientists at Stanford modified hematopoietic stem cells to produce TERT. When
injecting the cells into the skin of nuded mice the mice grew hair. The scientists
showed that conditional activation of TERT causes hematopoietic stem cells (from
bone marrow) to proliferate, and induces stem cell like characteristics in somatic
cells, leading to a new anagen cycle. By promoting the developmental switch to anagen,
TERT led to robust hair synthesis. more info
Repaired Skin
In a study, Geron introduced telomerase to aging fibroblasts which dramatically increased their division capacity and restored their ability to reconstitute normal human
skin structures in the model system. A genomics microarray analysis also showed
that telomerase restored a normal pattern of expressed genes to old fibroblasts.
Telomerase, therefore, not only confers replicative immortality to skin fibroblasts,
but also prevents or reverses the loss of biological function associated with aging
cells. more
info
Cardiovascular Disease
Telomere shortening in endothelial and progenitor cells plays a crucial role in
the development of vascular disease.
Fast Cell Repair
Cells with longer telomeres fix damaged DNA much more rapidly. Cells in logarithmic
growth without ectopic hTERT expression exhibited a slow rate of DNA repair along
with higher residual DNA damage whereas cells with ectopic hTERT expression had
a fast rate of DNA repair and less residual DNA damage.
In addition, here is a list of links for further information, also care of Telomolecular:
Next >>