Evidence from a small number of studies suggests that longer telomere length measured in peripheral leukocytes is associated with an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). However, these studies may be biased by reverse causation, confounded by unmeasured environmental exposures and might miss time points for which prospective telomere measurement would best reveal a relationship between...

Nijmegen breakage syndrome (NBS) is an autosomal genetic disease demonstrating a variety of phenotypic abnormalities, including premature aging, increased cancer incidence, chromosome instability, and sensitivity to ionizing radiation. The gene involved in NBS, NBS1, is part of the MRE11/RAD50/NBS1 (MRN) complex that also includes MRE11 and RAD50, which is involved in DNA repair and cell cycle ...

Telomeres are nucleoprotein complexes located at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes and are shorten with aging or various causes. Shortened telomere plays an important role for chromosomal instability in carcinogenesis, or a number of diseases in relation to aging. FISH using peptide-nucleic acid (PNA) probe is suitable for analyzing telomeres, because telomere is a part of DNA molecule and loc...

We report that mouse liver cells are highly resistant to extensive telomere dysfunction. In proliferating cells, telomere dysfunction results in chromosome end fusions, a DNA damage signal, and apoptosis or senescence. To determine the consequences of telomere dysfunction in noncycling cells, we used conditional deletion of the telomeric protein TRF2 in hepatocytes. TRF2 loss resulted in telome...

Telomere lengths are maintained in many cancer cells by the ribonucleoprotein enzyme telomerase but can be further elongated by increasing telomerase activity through the overexpression of telomerase components. We report here that increased telomerase activity results in increased telomere length that eventually reaches a plateau, accompanied by the generation of telomere length heterogeneity ...

We have studied models of telomerase haploinsufficiency in humans and mice to analyze regulation of telomere length and the significance of "set points" in inheritance of telomere length. In three families with clinical syndromes associated with short telomeres resulting from haploinsufficient mutations in TERT, the gene encoding telomerase reverse transcriptase, we asked whether restoration of...

BACKGROUND Telomeres--the terminal caps of chromosomes--become shorter as individuals age, and there is much interest in determining what causes telomere attrition since this process may play a role in biological aging. The leading hypothesis is that telomere attrition is due to inflammation, exposure to infectious agents, and other types of oxidative stress, which damage telomeres and impair t...

Since the suggestion of their existence, a wealth of literature on telomere biology has emerged aimed at solving the DNA end-underreplication problem identified by Olovnikov in 1971. Telomere shortening/dysfunction is now recognized as increasing degenerative disease risk. Recent studies have suggested that both dietary patterns and individual micronutrients--including folate--can influence tel...

The telomere integrity is maintained via replication machinery, telomere associated proteins and telomerase. Many telomere associated proteins are regulated in a cell cycle-dependent manner. Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A1 (hnRNP A1), a single-stranded oligonucleotide binding protein, is thought to play a pivotal role in telomere maintenance. Here, we identified hnRNP A1 as a novel s...