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Published on June 18, 2024
Two leading groups have developed new techniques to study telomeres using long-read sequencing that could be major advances for the study of these key chromosome parts and their effects on aging, cancer, and other diseases. Their studies are already shedding light on these. One technique was developed by researchers at…
Published on June 5, 2024
Researchers at Rockefeller University have uncovered a key mechanism that helps maintain proper telomere length, a discovery that has significant implications for understanding and potentially treating various diseases, including cancer and telomere-related disorders. The study, published in Cell, sheds light on how the CST–Polα/primase complex is recruited to telomeres, the…
Published on September 21, 2022
A new study shows, for the first time, that telomeres set the damage threshold a cancer cell can sustain and above which cells cannot continue to divide and die. These results open new possibilities for cancer therapeutics. Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes that keep shortening at each cell division,…
Published on April 22, 2022
At least in women, shorter telomeres may influence the severity of COVID-19 and the risk of dying from the disease, according to new research. No significant differences were found in relative telomere length between men who survived COVID-19 and those who died of the disease. The study is from Ana…
Published on December 2, 2020
Telomere shortening, known to be a side-effect of human aging, has long been viewed in a negative light. Now, research from the lab of Titia de Lange, Ph.D., at Rockefeller University shows this natural shortening of the tips of human chromosomes can actually have a health benefit The results of…
Published on October 15, 2020
Research headed by a team at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Switzerland, has generated new insights into how molecules that accumulate at the tips of chromosomes home in on specific sections of chromosomes to protect them. Their findings, reported in Nature, “RAD51-dependent recruitment of TERRA lncRNA to…
Published on May 1, 2015
Telomere length hasn’t been a reliable yardstick for measuring the progress of cancer. Because cancer cells divide frequently, and because telomeres shorten with repeated cell division, you might expect cancer cells to age rapidly, and then expire. Yet cancer cells often compensate by making more telomerase enzyme, which prevents the…
Published on June 24, 2024
Restoring “youthful” levels of a specific telomerase enzyme slowed signs of aging in preclinical models, according to researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. These findings could have therapeutic implications for age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease, and cancer. The team found that telomerase reverse…
Published on January 29, 2024
A large-scale genome-wide association (GWAS) scan has found that a low-frequency missense variant in the synaptonemal complex central element protein 2 (SYCE2) gene increases the risk of pregnancy loss by 22%. Notably, this variant is transmitted by the mother. “These results support the hypothesis that some pregnancy losses are due…
Published on February 9, 2023
Researchers from the Salk Institute have discovered that when telomeres become very short, they send signals to the mitochondria. This communication triggers a set of signaling pathways that promote an inflammatory response to destroy cells that may otherwise become cancerous. The findings published in Nature may lead to novel methods…
Published on January 20, 2023
A massive, multinational genomic study has uncovered several genetic mutations that operate through specific biological pathways to increase susceptibility to sarcoma cancers. The genetic variants increased the risk of inherited sarcomas by altering telomere biology and mitotic function, both of which are fundamental to chromosome integrity. The findings, outlined in…
Published on October 14, 2022
Clinical next-generation sequencing (NGS) can mean different things to different people, so when trying to understand the current landscape of clinical NGS, it is important to appreciate that it covers a wide range of applications—from single-gene testing to whole-genome sequencing. Also known as high-throughput sequencing—owing to its more rapid resolution…
Published on October 14, 2022
By Manrose Singh, Danny MacKenzie, Sanket Desai, Noelle Batista, and Dong Zhang Members of the Zhang lab at New York Institute of Technology Since the early 1990s, when telomerase was first cloned, targeting the telomere maintenance mechanism (TMM) to treat cancer has been considered to be…
Published on July 20, 2022
A team of scientists from A*STAR’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) and Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) among others, have identified an important cancer progression mechanism that is observed in 90% of cancer cells. The team said in their report published in Nucleic Acids Research that by activating…
Published on July 1, 2022
U.S. researchers have unveiled a new way in which cells lose their ability to divide, which can affect the body’s ability to regenerate and also promote tumor growth and inflammation. The researchers report their findings in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. The team found that a common form of oxidative…