4 ms·

I'm not sure of that analogy. Somehow telomeres are thought to connected to aging. http://www.progeriaresearch.org/cbs-monday-night.html http://www.progeriarese

by MollyR 12y ago

I'm not sure of that analogy. Somehow telomeres are thought to connected to aging. http://www.progeriaresearch.org/cbs-monday-night.html http://www.progeriaresearch.org/cbs-monday-night.html Cancer cells can extend their telomeres, and are also immortal. I imagine them to be some sort of internal counter that other components of the system listen to. I guess I also have a hard time figuring out what people are trying to say when they call parts of the genome "junk". Perhaps what's "junk" is contextually dependent ? One human's trash is another human's treasure ?

thaumasiotes 12y ago
> Somehow telomeres are thought to [be] connected to aging The mechanism here isn't a mystery. As I originally pointed out, you'll die when your telomeres are gone from loss of DNA. Every time a cell divides, a certain amount of DNA is lost from the ends of each chromosome. Imagine if every time you copied a file 4 kilobytes were lopped off the beginning and end of both copies. Telomeres are padding (again, they code HLT HLT HLT HLT HLT HLT HLT HLT HLT...) that can be lost without affecting the functioning of the cell.
- MollyR 12y ago
  I do agree with you, that is the general scientific consensus. I made that statement vague because new data is emerging about the telomere network,so I'm not sure what is the current correct way to think about telomere's. Some new research papers are emerging that question the existing model we have about telomeres. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fgene.2015.00082/full http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fgene.2015.00... Quote from that paper "summarizing recent research findings, Trusina (2014) conclude that recently obtained knowledge ‘shift the telomere paradigm from a simple clock counting cell divisions to a more complex process recording the history of stress exposure within a cell lineage.’ " So I find it reasonable to think that telomeres could be more than just padding, like a clock or history of stress exposure in a cell lineage.
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    This isn't totally unreasonable, but bear in mind that the information-theoretic information content of telomeres is almost zero (quoting from wikipedia, "For vertebrates, the sequence of nucleotides in telomeres is TTAGGG"). There's very little room for information to be recorded.

by MollyR 12y ago

thaumasiotes 12y ago

> Somehow telomeres are thought to [be] connected to aging The mechanism here isn't a mystery. As I originally pointed out, you'll die when your telomeres are gone from loss of DNA. Every time a cell divides, a certain amount of DNA is lost from the ends of each chromosome. Imagine if every time you copied a file 4 kilobytes were lopped off the beginning and end of both copies. Telomeres are padding (again, they code HLT HLT HLT HLT HLT HLT HLT HLT HLT...) that can be lost without affecting the functioning of the cell.

MollyR 12y ago
I do agree with you, that is the general scientific consensus. I made that statement vague because new data is emerging about the telomere network,so I'm not sure what is the current correct way to think about telomere's. Some new research papers are emerging that question the existing model we have about telomeres. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fgene.2015.00082/full http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fgene.2015.00... Quote from that paper "summarizing recent research findings, Trusina (2014) conclude that recently obtained knowledge ‘shift the telomere paradigm from a simple clock counting cell divisions to a more complex process recording the history of stress exposure within a cell lineage.’ " So I find it reasonable to think that telomeres could be more than just padding, like a clock or history of stress exposure in a cell lineage.
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  This isn't totally unreasonable, but bear in mind that the information-theoretic information content of telomeres is almost zero (quoting from wikipedia, "For vertebrates, the sequence of nucleotides in telomeres is TTAGGG"). There's very little room for information to be recorded.