© 2004 by Oxford University Press
© 2004 Oxford University Press
NEWS |
For Telomeres, Longer Is Not Always Better
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
"Short people got no reason to live," goes the Randy Newman song. The same used to be thought of cells with short telomeres, those indispensable nubs of repetitive DNA and protein coating that protect the ends of chromosomes. But if Randy Newman was singing about telomeres, he would have to rewrite his lyrics. New findings are overturning what scientists thought they knew about the importance of telomere length; the role of telomerase, the enzyme that maintains telomeres; and how cancer cells might respond to anti-telomerase treatment.
Nobel prize–winning geneticist Barbara McClintock, Ph.D., first posited that telomeres protect chromosomes from the assaults of exonucleases, as well as from fusions and recombinations that can become the fate of uncapped chromosomes. Such genetic damage usually leads to cell death, but occasionally cells escape death and instead become cancerous.
Certain cells, including cancer cells, protect their telomeres from further trimming as the cells multiply
Fusion or Confusion
In the Clinic