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You have excellent points here. I wouldn't call it not interesting though. One interesting version of this experiment would be to take these same telomerase-def
by geuis 16y ago
You have excellent points here. I wouldn't call it not interesting though. One interesting version of this experiment would be to take these same telomerase-deficient mice and see if they live longer than normal mouse while receiving the enzyme they fail to produce on their own. What this experiment shows is that telomerase is essential to the function of normal body tissues, and that its absence causes severe problems. The next step would be to see if their life-spans are lengthened with continued treatment, if they live as long as a normal mouse, or if their lifespans are indeed shortened even with continued treatment.
- stcredzero 16y agoHuman beings and other large mammals suppress their telomerase. Why? Because it can save them from cancer. If the cancer cells never mutate to activate their telomerase or the alternative pathway for fixing telomeres, they start to malfunction and die off before the tumor gets larger than about an inch across. Often, this isn't such a big deal for a human. For a mouse, it's a really big deal and they'll probably die. Hence, there's no anti-cancer benefit for a mouse to suppress telomerase, so they're designed to have it "on" all the time. Whales almost never die of cancer. By the time a cancer gets as large as a human's head, the cancer cells have mutated into dysfunction or parasitism of other tumor cells. Tumors that have been around long enough to get that big tend to die off. For a whale, a tumor the size of a human head is no big deal. The folks that still kill whales (for "research") find tumor scars in whales all the time. They just seem to shrug it off. Activating a human being's telomerase in the fashion discussed in the article would likely bring about an early death of cancer.