Question

1)
how telomerase changed science
2)
future utilities of telomerase

Answer 1

1.The shortening of human telomerase caps that protect the chromosome from deterioration has been associated with agents and disease.

Researchers have found a way to lengthen these telomers , potentially opening the door to new treatments for many age related and genetic conditions.

The research team lead by John Ramunars , PhD and Eduard Yakubov , PhD, published their findings in the FASEB journal .

Chromosome are thread like structure situated at the end of the DNA strands that contain all our genetic informations. Telomers protect our chromosome from being damaged during cell division.

However telomers becomes shorten with cell division and reach a point where they are no longer able to protect chromosome , leaving them open to deterioration. This lead to aging and disease development.

Studying human cell in laboratory is important for finding new ways for treating such diseases but the teams says shortening of telomerase make it challenging; it allowed researchers to monitor cells over few division before they die.

But now Ramuans and Yakubov and their teams with that they have found a new way to increase the length of telomers which could increase the number of human cell available for studying

NEW METHOD INCREASED TELOMER LENGTH UP TO 10%

To increase telomere length, the team used a modified type of ribonucleic acid ( RNA) that contain the coding sequence of TERT.

TERT is an active component of telomerase- an enzyme expressed by stem cells that maintain health of telomers as they are passed to next generation. Though stem cell express TERT , the researchers note the most other cell type do not.

In their study the researchers explain that introducing as few as three applications of the modified RNA(called modified TERT mRNA) to human cell over few days increase telomere length up to 10%. Young human posses telomers that are around 8000-10000, nucleotides long, the term notes, but the modified TERT encoding RNA increase telomere length by around 1000 nucleotides.

The researchers says that human skin cell treated which modified TERT mRNA divide around 28 more times then those which remain untreated, while treated human muscle divide around 3 more time.

This technique is non immunogenic. Existing transient methods extending telomers act slowly , where is this method act over a just few days two reverse telomere shortening that occurs over more than a decade of normal aging. This suggests that treatment using this method could be brief and infrequent.

2. Future utilities of telomerase

This new technique can lead to treatments of age related diseases such as diabetes and heart disease and genetic conditions that are associated with telomere shortening , such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy- an inherited neuromuscular conditions estimated to affect 1 in 3600 male in U.S.