Thank you for those references!
I had a look at them and it is interesting but by no means conclusive.
The fact that telomerase is active in the tissues of those organisms is,
in my opinion, no proof that telomere shortening is causing aging in vivo.
The key word is that those organisms have inditerminate growth, meaning
that they grow continiously throughout their lifespan.
The rattle snake is such an example. A colleague here at my University
studies rattlesnakes and they too have inditerminated growth. Also, just
like the lobster and rainbowtrout, they do not exhibit senescence in the
wild. However, their maximum lifespan in only 17 years and they also
exhibit mortality rate doublings when in captivity (i.e. senescence). And I
bet you they have active telomerase in their somatic cells as well. So my
point is, that while active telomerase may be required for inditerminate
growth, it does not seem to be correlated with lifespan.
Here is what it would take to swing my opinion. If you could show that a
transgenic animal overexpressing telomerase in somatic tissues has
increased maximum longevity, perhaps only as much as 10%, I think I would
be convinced. And I would really love for you to publish that. I have stock
in geron, for reason not directly related to telomerase, and I know the
stock would be shooting up as soon as you annouced such a finding. So get
to work! =)
