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Telomeres and Age-Related Diseases

Telomeres are at the non-coding ends of linear chromosomes. Through a complex 3-dimensional structure, they protect the coding DNA and ensure appropriate separation of chromosomes. Aging is characterized by a progressive shortening of telomeres, which compromises their structure and function. Becaus...

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Autores principales: Gruber, Hans-Jürgen, Semeraro, Maria Donatella, Renner, Wilfried, Herrmann, Markus
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8533433/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34680452
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9101335
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author Gruber, Hans-Jürgen
Semeraro, Maria Donatella
Renner, Wilfried
Herrmann, Markus
author_facet Gruber, Hans-Jürgen
Semeraro, Maria Donatella
Renner, Wilfried
Herrmann, Markus
author_sort Gruber, Hans-Jürgen
collection PubMed
description Telomeres are at the non-coding ends of linear chromosomes. Through a complex 3-dimensional structure, they protect the coding DNA and ensure appropriate separation of chromosomes. Aging is characterized by a progressive shortening of telomeres, which compromises their structure and function. Because of their protective function for genomic DNA, telomeres appear to play an important role in the development and progression of many age-related diseases, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), malignancies, dementia, and osteoporosis. Despite substantial evidence that links telomere length with these conditions, the nature of these observations remains insufficiently understood. Therefore, future studies should address the question of causality. Furthermore, analytical methods should be further improved with the aim to provide informative and comparable results. This review summarize the actual knowledge of telomere biology and the possible implications of telomere dysfunction for the development and progression of age-related diseases. Furthermore, we provide an overview of analytical techniques for the measurement of telomere length and telomerase activity.
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spelling pubmed-85334332021-10-23 Telomeres and Age-Related Diseases Gruber, Hans-Jürgen Semeraro, Maria Donatella Renner, Wilfried Herrmann, Markus Biomedicines Review Telomeres are at the non-coding ends of linear chromosomes. Through a complex 3-dimensional structure, they protect the coding DNA and ensure appropriate separation of chromosomes. Aging is characterized by a progressive shortening of telomeres, which compromises their structure and function. Because of their protective function for genomic DNA, telomeres appear to play an important role in the development and progression of many age-related diseases, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), malignancies, dementia, and osteoporosis. Despite substantial evidence that links telomere length with these conditions, the nature of these observations remains insufficiently understood. Therefore, future studies should address the question of causality. Furthermore, analytical methods should be further improved with the aim to provide informative and comparable results. This review summarize the actual knowledge of telomere biology and the possible implications of telomere dysfunction for the development and progression of age-related diseases. Furthermore, we provide an overview of analytical techniques for the measurement of telomere length and telomerase activity. MDPI 2021-09-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8533433/ /pubmed/34680452 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9101335 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Gruber, Hans-Jürgen
Semeraro, Maria Donatella
Renner, Wilfried
Herrmann, Markus
Telomeres and Age-Related Diseases
title Telomeres and Age-Related Diseases
title_full Telomeres and Age-Related Diseases
title_fullStr Telomeres and Age-Related Diseases
title_full_unstemmed Telomeres and Age-Related Diseases
title_short Telomeres and Age-Related Diseases
title_sort telomeres and age-related diseases
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8533433/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34680452
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9101335
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