IUBio

Telomeres to the rescue?

hawthorn at waikato.ac.nz hawthorn at waikato.ac.nz
Thu Sep 28 00:03:23 EST 1995


In article <44ar3h$klp$1 at mhadf.production.compuserve.com>, JULIO KARWOSKI <102225.2745 at CompuServe.COM> writes:
> George: Responding to your inquiry about telomeres I should say 
> that Allsop & Harley have found an average critical telomere 
> length to be 0-2kbp at the onset of senescence. Also, at onset of 
> senescense there are still many telomere sequences left on the 
> average but since telomeres are heterochromatic, the prevailing 
> theory is that the heterochromatin traps the first few genetic 
> bases which will become silent. Yes, at this point senility is 
> still reversible according to experimental evidence by J.W.Shay 
> and W.E.West because actual genetic sequences have not been lost 
> just yet. Your question about a senescent factor being expressed 
> is partially right, actually there is some evidence of an anti 
> senescent regulatory factor expressed by those first few genes 
> but when they become engulfed in heterochromatin they become 
> silent and senescence will occur. This is a hot area in biology 
> and its interesting to know that some people like yourself are 
> interested to learn more about whats making us old.
>     best regards,
>     
>     Julio Karwoski

... so you inject your rat with telomerase. What happens? Dead rat?

Ian H




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