One thing we all can be sure from the day we are born is that we are slowly marching towards out inevitable mortality. This is true for almost all living creatures that we know; we all grow old and eventually die.
I have many question as does many of you; Why do we age? can we reverse our aging process? Can we be immortal? These questions may be really old, but if you have any answers do share it here with me.
one thing i heard of is 'telomere shortening' leading to cell death
ReplyDeleteanother is free radicals
yeah i'd like to be forever young too :D
For those who have no idea what Telomeres are; they are repeat sequences of nucleotides found at the tip of the chromosomes (in the case of humans its TTAGGG), they helps maintain structural integrity of chromosomes.
ReplyDeleteTelomeres are created by an Enzyme called Telomerase, that adds telomeric DNA sequences onto the ends of the linear chromosomes.
Logic or the science of Telomere shortening is; each time a cells replicates the DNA molecule becomes shorter cause the DNA polymerase is incapable of synthesizing new DNA at the 3' ends of the parent stand. However by the addition of many new repeat telomeric units to the 3' end telomerase can prevent the chromosome from shrinking.
Now the problem with normal somatic cells is that, it doesn't have enough telomerases in them to carry out that function; thus the telomeres length is reduced something like 100base pairs every time a cell divides.
Hmm so in other words hypothetically if our cells were supplied with enough telomerase enzymes we might be able to prolong aging process? +.-