subject: Cellular Aging Insight Gives New Hope To Cancer [print this page] Every day researchers head to work hoping to find a cure for horrific diseases like cancer by looking at the cellular aging process. To this day, there is still unfortunately no cure for the illness. This has not hindered the process or progress of researchers by any means as they are dedicated to finding a cure. And a major breakthrough has occurred with findings in regards to telomerase and cellular aging.
It can certainly be disheartening investing a great deal of time toward something while getting the same negative results day after day. This is precisely what it has been like for those searching for a cure or preventative strategy of some sort in regards to cancer. It has almost seemed like a lost cause, but there is hope for the future.
It has been discovered that telomeres also contain RNA. Telomeres are the repeated DNA-protein complexes at the end of chromosomes that shorten every time a cell divides. Through this discovery, it was immediately questioned as to how they function and what kind of avenue there may be to stop telomere renewal in cancer cells.
Telomeres are the clock that lead to cellular aging
Inside the cell nucleus, genetic information within each human is located on double stranded molecules of DNA. At the end of the chromosomes are telomeres, which are essentially zones of repeated chains of DNA. Think of telomeres as a cellular clock that leads to cellular aging as they shorten every time a cell divides.
This is where cellular aging comes into effect as the telomeres turn on an alarm system to prevent further division after the cell has grown and divided a few dozen times. Without the proper function, cells will end up with damaged chromosomes or they will continue to divide endlessly. As a result, it leads to cancer. This is a huge breakthrough as it explains how this function can potentially be manipulated.
Genetic information is placed into segments of RNA that are then placed into the cell and carry out a number of different tasks. While it was at one time believed that telomerase were silent, it is now believed that RNA is transcribed from DNA on the telomere.
Cellular aging and cancer cells
So what does this mean? Telomerase rebuilds the telomere so that cells can continue to divide. As the telomerase dwindles, the telomere will shorten and the cells become inactive. Telomerase enzyme continues to rebuild telomeres far longer than the cells normal lifetime in cancer cells. Cellular aging in cancer cells essentially stops as the cells become immortal with an endless lifespan to divide because of the excess telomerase, thus resulting in a tumor.
Hope in cellular aging
Researchers have found that telomere maintenance activity actually occurs in around 90% of human cancers. Researchers also went on to discover that the RNA in the telomere is regulated by a protein in the telomerase enzyme.
With the discoveries made thus far, there is hope for the future with the possibility to predict cancer cells. The goal is to obviously halt the growth of cancer cells by allowing cellular aging to happen in cancer cells, thus preventing or curing cancer. For the time being this is certainly not plausible; but there is a great deal of excitement within the cellular aging industry as things are moving in the right direction.
