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If you have short telomeres, you’re basically screwed. We’ve known these dwarfed pieces of DNA are connected to aging-related disorders like dementia and heart disease, but they also might make you more likely to catch a cold.
What’s a telomere and why do you need it? They’re the caps on the ends of chromosomes, the protectors of genes, without which genes can be degraded and truncated. Every time a gene is replicated, a telomere is shortened. Once they’re gone, it means the cell can’t divide anymore, so the cell dies. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have, for the first time, found abnormal telomeres culpable for illnesses in healthy, young people. They took a sample of 152 adults (ages 18-55), and gave them nasal drops that contained the cold virus for six days. Of those, 105 became infected, and 33 developed full-blown colds. So where’s the link? Researchers found that among four blood types, there was a bigger risk for infection, specifically in a certain T-cells—the type of white blood cell that protects your body from illness—with shorter telomeres. And that link was only stronger with older participants.
Why are telomeres the genetic scapegoats? The researchers think that T-cells with smaller caps might not proliferate as well as their taller counterparts. That means it’s harder for the cell to respond and clear out the infected cells when you get sick. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about the genes you’re born with. [LA Times via Digg]
Image by trumanlo under Creative Commons license
And cancer. Lots of cancer. Wrote a paper on it for a dissertation. Certain species of hamsters can regenerate their telomeres, meaning they nearly never get cancer.
Also, cancerous cells express the enzyme telomerase (which extends the telomeres) which is a sign of increased cell growth. Some drugs are being designed to hunt down cells with unusual levels of telomerase, and destroy those cells, theoretically destroying tumours. All very interesting stuff!
Kat, fancy an article on it?
I’ll read that article (please Kat…..)
Signed up just to comment on how interesting I would find such an article.
As a slight expansion on this, I’m currently writing a dissertation on the mechanisms of immune evasion by cancer (A newly proposed hallmark-see weinberg & Hanahan, 2011) that has recently made a comeback of such.
Cancer, although an awful condition, is wonderfully complex and treatment is exceedingly difficult – indeed traditional chemotherapy was discovered by accident! (I’m talking the nitrogen mustard based drugs)
All highly interesting stuff indeed
Ah, that sounds truly fascinating. I’ve never really looked into the immuno-response stuff myself – until I started my Physiology unit, I’ve only really been interested in intra-cellular mechanisms, I’ll definitely be looking up the immuno-response to cancer since you posted this comment. Thank you!
It is, it was something that had been thought unimportant for a long time as it was difficult to produce any real, useful, results. But it has made a comeback now with reproducible cell cultures and such. (The first use of the immune system as a weapon against cancer involved injecting a bacteria that i cant remember into a particular tumour, a method still used for the cancer today)
A number of monoclonal antibodies evoke the immune system as a response, for example Ipilmumab (Yervoy) which is effective against metastatic melanoma.
Of course the more interesting side is the evolutions (rather mutations) that tumour cells develop to evade such responses.
Wonder if I could get away with using this the next time I pull a sickie, “Sorry boss, won’t be in today, my telomeres are a bit on the short side”.
This is not the best news for someone who very regularly gets colds
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I’m just going to point out that telomeres are reduced by the process of DNA-replication during cell division, not during ‘gene replication’, which isn’t even a thing.