telomeres

Lizards born to parents that experienced persistent heat had shortened telomeres, a genetic weathering that typically happens with age but can also be exacerbated by stress.

Weill Cornell Medicine geneticist Christopher Mason speaks with The Scientist about a bolus of new work on the physiological, cellular, and molecular effects of leaving Earth.

Two studies examining the effects of parents’ ages on their offsprings’ telomere lengths come to opposite conclusions.  

The findings contradict what has been observed in humans.  

Researchers find that while bats in the Myotis genus don’t produce telomerase, the enzyme that lengthens telomeres, they possess 21 telomere maintenance–related genes.

Shorter telomere length is widely considered a manifestation of stress in young children, but the results of a new study find it’s more complicated than that.  

An accumulation of stressful events in childhood is associated with shorter telomeres as a person ages, researchers report. 

Endurance exercise and metabolism are linked to transcriptional activation of human telomeres, researchers propose.

A biotech company reports that an experimental treatment elongated its CEO’s telomeres. 

What researchers are learning as they sequence, map, and decode species’ genomes

Two mutations in a gene involved in telomere extension reverse the gene’s epigenetic silencing.

Researchers identify a novel protein that helps maintain the length of chromosome-capping telomeres. 

Treating cancer by shutting down the alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) pathway

Not only do telomeres protect the ends of chromosomes, they also modulate gene expression over cells’ lifetimes.

How do we age, and can we slow it down?

From DNA damage to cellular miscommunication, aging is a mysterious and multifarious process.

A newly described method linearizes circular chromosomes in yeast and caps them with telomeres to mimic natural chromosomes.

Stress and telomere length in children; osmotic channel protein identified; amoeba nibbles, then kills cells; amphetamine and mental disorder risk; news from AACR