The biggest question that humanity has been finding answers since the beginning of time is immortality. While, no one is immortal, research is still on to look into aging and ways to fight it too, it would not be wrong to say that we are getting closer and closer to the answer with times. The answers though are known to lie in our own DNA, and particularly in telomeres, a portion of our DNA that is responsible for the key changes amid the aging process.
Telomeres shorten with age and hence the main objective of the study is around keeping the telomeres of the DNA intact so as to stop aging. When the DNA replicate, they make the telomeres shorten progressively. The shorter they are the more worn out the cell is known to be and this is known to be the primary cause of aging in animals as per researchers.
Now, here’s some news you’d like to read. A new research has revealed that scientists have come across a certain stem cell kind that have telomeres twice as long as the regular cells. These stem cells kinds are known as embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. Now if these stem cells are kept on a Petri dish in the lab for division then they produce identical cells with extra-long telomeres.
Earlier the experiments used to be around DNA modification in order to curb the aging process but this new find is about using the natural feature already inside the body of the cell pairs to maintain telomeres that are extra long.
In this study researchers made use of extra long telomeres in embryonic cells for breeding chimeric mice without any genetic modification usage at all. The molecular biologist Maria blasco at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) in a statement said “ There is a margin for extending life without altering genes” and these finding back the idea that genes are not the only thing to consider when it comes to determining longevity.
The results of the experiment published in Nature Communciations showed the long telomere mice increased their life span by a whooping 24% plus they were slimmer and at a lower risk of developing acance as well. There were indications that showed that the metabolic aging slowed down.
Though it is less likely that this experiment could be carried out on humans soon but it does open gateway to new methods for taking benefits of the link.
*Sourced from Interenet
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