Senescence and Immortalization: Relationships to Telomeres and Telomerase

Telomeres and Telomerase in Cellular Aging (Senescence)

Telomeres are bits of DNA on the ends of chromosomes that protect chromosomes from sticking to each other or tangling, which could cause DNA to abnormally function. As cells replicate, telomeres shorten at the end of chromosomes, and this process correlates to senescence [7] or cellular aging [8]. Integral to this process is telomerase, which is an enzyme that repairs telomeres and is present i...

Telomeres and telomerase.

Telomeres are the protective DNA-protein complexes found at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. Telomeric DNA consists of tandem repeats of a simple, often G-rich, sequence specified by the action of telomerase, and complete replication of telomeric DNA requires telomerase. Telomerase is a specialized cellular ribonucleoprotein reverse transcriptase. By copying a short template sequence within ...

SnapShot: Telomeres and Telomerase

Telomeres and telomerase.

Telomeres are in the spotlight of modern biology. Whether the subject at hand is cancer, gene regulation, organismal aging, or the cloning of mammals, much seems to depend on what happens at the ends of chromosomes. Because glamorous hypotheses often persist without experimental support, it is important to ask ourselves what we really know about telomeres. This was the topic of a recent meeting...

Telomeres and Telomerase : The means To

dna carries coding and noncoding sequences. noncoding dna both regulates and ensures the continued inheritance of dna’s coding information. In eukaryotes, by protecting the chromosome ends and thereby the chromosomes themselves, telomeric dna is a class of noncoding dna that ensures the stable inheritance of the genetic material. research begun in the 1930s on the cytogenetics of telomeres was ...