X-Message-Number: 25380 From: Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 14:53:40 EST Subject: Basie- telomere shortening in other species >It would not be difficult to compare the telemeres of a large number of different animal species (whose ages are known) with their age. One should be able to draw a graph that shows this correlation. This study should then be repeated by another independent science facility. The reason this have not been done is perhaps because the proponents of this theory do not want to embarrass themselves. Dear Basie, I have personally measured the telomere lengths of hundreds of humans and about 40 species of mammals and birds (our lab has measured over a hundred species, many for significant numbers of cell PDs). Human average telomere length does shorten with age (in cells that divide or are produced by dividing cells, like the white blood cells and fibroblasts that I have worked with. Naturally one would expect no effect on neurons). Other mammal telomeres are of two types. Rodents and lagomorphs have very long telomeres and express telomerase, so they show no shortening. Larger, longer-lived mammals such as humans and whales (bowheads live over 200 years... maybe I should just put that fact in a sig line) have relatively short telomeres in their somatic cells that shorten with each division. A quick search of PubMed will probably turn up whatever else you want to know about telomeres and aging. Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25380