Telomeres And Telomerase Aging

[mage lang=”en|es|fr|en” source=”flickr”]telomeres and telomerase aging[/mage]
what are telomeres and telomerase?

related with aging etc

Telomeres are the long patterned junk DNA at the end of the chromosomes. Their function is to protect the cell’s DNA from being lost. Each time your cell divides it loses some DNA, and this would be devestating if you didn’t have an extra amount of junk. Telomerase is an enzyme involved in the maintenance of telomeres.

Cancer cells can become immortal by activating telomerase and adding more telomere DNA to the end of their chromosomes. There are groups that are working to make drugs that target telomeric G quadruplex DNA as a form of chemotherapy. See Dr. Sean Kerwin, I briefly worked in his lab.