| Telomere
& Telomerase in the News |
|
- Scientific
American
- Turning
Back the Strands of Time by Kristin Leutwyler (February 2,
1998)
- Telomeres,
Telomerase and Cancer by Carol W. Greider & Elizabeth
H. Blackburn (February, 1996)
- The
Scientist
- Telomere
Without End, Amen by Laura DeFrancesco (March 30, 1998)
- Telomere
Findings May Yield Tips For Treating Cancer, Geriatric
Disorders by Ricki Lewis (Feb. 19, 1996)
- CNN Interactive
- Scientists
discover cellular 'fountain of youth' (January 13, 1998)
- Researchers
seek biological key to 'fountain of youth' (November 4,
1996)
- TIME
- An
Attack on Aging by Christine Gornan (Jan. 26, 1998 Vol.
151 No. 3)
- The
Immortality Enzyme by J. Madeleine Nash (Sept. 1, 1997
Vol. 150 N0. 9)
- U.S.
News Online
- New
technique resets the biological clock by Rita Rubin
(January 26, 1998)
- What
causes aging? by Nancy Shute (August 18, 1997)
|
- Accelerated telomere shortening is a response to life stress
Chronicity of stress—is significantly associated with higher oxidative stress, lower telomerase activity, and shorter telomere length, which are known determinants of cell senescence and longevity, in peripheral blood mononuclear
cells. Women with the highest levels of perceived stress have
demonstrated telomeres shorter on average by the equivalent of at least one decade of additional aging
compared. Elissa S. Epel, Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Jue Lin, Firdaus S. Dhabhar, Nancy E. Adler, Jason D. Morrow, and Richard M. Cawthon,PNAS 2004 101: 17312-17315;
Broken chromosomes can be healed by
adding new telomeres
Chromosome healing through terminal deletions generated by de novo telomere additions.
534 independent de novo telomere additions were achieved within a 12-kb region of chromosome
by de novo genome rearrangement and addition of a telomere.
http://www.pnas.org
Telomeric
Sequences from Various
Eukaryotes. In
most organisms studied, telomere DNA sequences are tandem array
of simple G- rich repeat on the strand running from centromere
to telomere.
Telomerase
Gene Sequences
WWW
pages from research groups studying telomere biology.
Upcoming Meetings
& Conferences that cover topics related to telomeres
& telomerase
Some articles
about telomerase.
Telomere
DataBase at Washington University.
This site is a part of GenLink
database at Washington University, and collects telomere related
references.
Biochemistry
(Moscow) Vol. 62 (1997)
Special Issue: TELOMERE,
TELOMERASE, CANCER, AND AGING This
issue contains recent reviews concerning telomere biology. The
entire text is available on-line. Nice
starting point for understanding recent telomere studies.
Telomerase and Telomeres [English]
[German]
(University of Stuttgart, Lab of Prof.
Dr. H.-D. Goertz)
This site has many Shockwave
Animations related to telomeres & telomerase. English
and German versions differ in organization and contained
links....
Tetrahymena
Telomeres
and Mitosis by Brian
Harmon Brian Harmon is a graduate student in the
Sedat lab. He discusses here new evidences
suggesting telomeres are important in sister chromatid
segregation during mitosis.
Lists of NIH Funded Research Groups [Gopher
Search]
[Telomere]
[Telomerase]
Lists of NSF Funded Research Groups [Gopher
Search]
[Telomere]
[Telomerase]
Geron
Corporation [Geron
News by The BioSpace] [Company
News by YAHOO] Geron
Corporation is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the
development of therapeutic products of aging, including cancer
by controlling telomerase activity in cells.
Interested in telomerase activity assay?
Boehringer-Mannheim
now sells Telomerase
RCR ELISA kit.
Oncor also sells TRAP-eze,
an telomerase detection kit. (Order
Information)
Recommendations
and Summary from workshop on telomerase
activity and early detection of cancer (June 6-7, 1996)
Aging
by Biology 52 Project: Telomere
and Telomerase: Their effects on aging
The
Aging Research Centre (ARC) Home Page
| WEB SITE |
DESCRIPTION |
| http://resolution.colorado.edu/~nakamut/telomere/telomere.html |
Telomere Club: Telomere
& Telomerase Research Information, assembled by
Toru Nakamura at the University of Colorado, Boulder,
contains information on telomere and related gene
sequences, and links to web sites of researcher and
companies working in this field. |
| http://resolution.colorado.edu/nakamut/telomere/telogroup.html |
A listing of telomerase
research groups with links to investigators' web
pages. |
| http://www.plattsburgh.edu/biology/bio401/Telomerase.html |
Animated telomerase
demonstration by Donald Slish of SUNY Plattsburgh. |
| http://vega.crbm.cnrs-mop.fr/bioscience/news/scientis/telomer1.html |
Frontiers in
Bioscience:Science News Digest for Physicians and
Scientist with links to resource material. |
| http://ilr.genebee.msu.su/agethry/telomere/tlmrase/ |
Telomerase Enzyme:
references to reviews and research articles |
| http://www.genlink.wustl.edu/teldb/teldb.html |
TelDB has information about
telomeric and subtelomeric regions of chromosomes and
telomere literature references, including a user
interface to the searchable telomere literature
database. |
| http://puma.protein.bio.msu.su/biokhimiya/index.htm |
Special Issue: TELOMERE,
TELOMERASE, CANCER, AND AGING Biochemistry (Moscow)
On-Line, World Wide Web version of the international
edition of this Russian scientific journal, containing
recent reviews on telomere biology. The entire text is
available on-line. |
| http://www.arclab.org/ |
Aging Research Centre (ARC)
provides a service that allows researchers in this
field to find information that is related to the study
of the aging process. |
|
Telomere & Telomerase
Research Information at
http://resolution.colorado.edu/~nakamut/telomere/telomere.html
Old Cells Can Be Young Again (telomeres can be repaired) from
www.alsearsmd.com/
When you get sick, your immune system makes copies of its
disease-fighting white blood cells called T-cells. These cells divide
over and over again to fight off the bacteria or virus that’s invading
your body.
The more often these cells reproduce, the shorter their telomeres become
until they stop copying. The older you get, the fewer active T-cells you
have because they’ve fought off as much sickness as they can. The bottom
line is that when your telomeres are short, your immune system looks and
acts old.
This makes your risk for infection and disease much higher. One study
looked at about 150 people from 60-75 years old. The ones who had
shorter telomeres were three times more likely to die from heart
disease. And they were eight times more likely to die from an infectious
disease.
Shortened telomeres also appear to be the mechanism for many chronic
diseases like:
Diabetes. When you eat too many carbohydrates, your pancreas is asked to
create more insulin than it’s supposed to. And to get the job done, the
pancreas has to create more of a factory to create the insulin it needs
by making more cells. If the pancreas is continually challenged to
produce more and more insulin, the cells have to continue to divide.
When their telomeres are too short, they can’t reproduce anymore. And
your body can’t make the insulin you need. This is what causes
diabetes.4
Atherosclerosis. One study I read looked at men with high blood
pressure. Those with shorter telomeres in their white blood cells were
more likely to get heart disease.5
Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s patients’ glial cells, the maintenance
cells to the brain, have short telomeres. Some kind of toxic
environmental hazard caused those cells to replicate to defend
themselves.6
But you don’t have to let your immune system grow old. When telomerase
is activated, you strengthen your cells by keeping the telomeres long,
strong and young. And the younger your cells are, the more powerful they
are at fighting sickness and disease.
In fact, for most of the people in a brand new study, telomerase
activation therapy reduced the percentage of immune cells with short
telomeres by 10-50 percent. And the amount of older immune cells
decreased by 10-20 percent.7 This represents an “apparent age reversal
of 5-20 years!”8
Grow Younger Naturally
Tons of research is going on every day and you’ll be reading more and
more about telomerase in the coming months. But in the meantime, you can
help slow the aging of your cells with nutrients.
One of the best nutrients for activating your telomerase is trusty
omega-3. A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association
followed about 600 people over a full five years. They found that daily
supplements of omega-3 significantly increased telomerase activity.9
References: 1 Cong, Yusheng, Shay, Jerry W., "Actions
of human telomerase beyond telomeres," Cell Research June 2008;
18:725-732
2 Simon, R., Chan, W. L., Blackburn, Elizabeth H., "Telomeres and
telomerase," Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 2004; 359, 109-121
3 Cawthon, R.M., Smith, K.R., O’Brien, E., et al, “Association between
telomere length in food and mortality in people aged 60 years or older,”
Lancet 2003; 361(9355): 393-395
4 Sampson, M., Winterbone, M., et al, “Monocyte Telomere Shortening and
Oxidative DNA Damage in Type 2 Diabetes,” Diabetes Care 2006
5 Benetos, A., Gardner, J., et al, “Short Telomeres are Associated with
Increased Carotid Atherosclerosis in Hypertensive Subjects,”
Hypertension 2004
6 Farfara, D., Lifshitz, V., et al, “Neuroprotective and neurotoxic
properties of glial cells in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease,”
Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine 2008
7 Harley, C., Weimin, L., et al, “A Natural Product Telomerase Activator
as Part of a Health Maintenance Program,” Rejuvenation Research 2010
8 Ibid.
9 Ramin Farzaneh-Far, M.D., "Association of Marine Omega-3 Fatty Acid
Levels with Telomeric Aging in Patients with Coronary Heart Disease,”
JAMA 2010; 303(3):250-257
10 Xu, Qun, Parks, Christine G., DeRoo, Lisa A., et al, “Multivitamin
use and telomere length in women," Am J Clin Nutr March 2009; 89:
1857-1863, 2009
11 Richards, J Brent, et al, "Higher serum vitamin D concentrations are
associated with longer leukocyte telomere length in women," Journal of
Clinical Nutrition Nov. 2007; Vol. 86, No. 5, 1420-1425
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