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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...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8533433 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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