The Association Between Telomeres and Telomerase in Can...

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The Association Between Telomeres and Telomerase in Cancer and Aging

Telomeres are an important component of your DNA. They essentially protect the ends of your DNA-carrying chromosomes by preventing them from damage and fusing with nearby chromosomes. To keep the genetic information inside of your cells intact, these telomeres shorten each time your cells replicate or divide. For this reason, throughout the normal lifespan, telomeres progressively shorten in length. You can get info. here concerning telomeres and telomerase in cancer and aging

A common feature in advanced cancer or malignancies is continuous cell divisions that are often associated with the reactivation of telomerase to stabilize the telomere length. Over the years as human bodies evolved, shorter telomeres and repressing telomerase served as protection mechanisms against cancer. While there is still more to learn about the regulation of telomerase, it has eventually become a primary target for the treatment of cancer in patients.

In these modern times, you can find plenty of advancements when it comes to aging and cancer detection and therapy. The role of telomerase in cancer therapy still needs more study, though. Nevertheless, you can find a lot of cancer therapies that focus on telomerase. The same is true for various assays utilized to measure telomerase and telomeres by getting samples from the human body. But just like everything else, more research on various treatment approaches is still needed.

The use of telomerase analysis technology today is very common when it comes to analyzing telomere length. It is a biomarker typically employed to determine the prognosis and risk for certain disease conditions, particularly cancer. It can be used solely or in combination with other biomarkers. There are still a lot of hits and misses when it comes to the use of this type of technology. Nevertheless, it is improving with the introduction of advancements in biomedicine.

Telomerase is an enzyme that is also known as telomere terminal transferase. Its activity was first discovered in the year 1985 in a single-cell organism. About ten years after, scientists identified telomerase as a universal marker for almost all advanced cancers in humans. It was only during the year 1997, though, that the protein component of the enzyme was first isolated. First, it was in yeast, and then, it was isolated in humans.

Many studies support the association between aging and shortening of telomere length. As a person ages, their telomeres eventually shorten in length. When shortened telomeres exist alongside a range of oncogenic changes, cells with short telomeres will not die and remain immortal. This eventually activates or increases the production of telomerase. Between 85% and 90% of human tumors show not only high levels of telomerase but also short telomeres. Check this page for more info about telomeres and telomerase in aging and cancer. To get more details about telomere, click here: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/cellular-aging-telomeres.