Chemical from Medicinal Plants May Be Used to Fight HIV

piggy submitted, created time 1 month 3 weeks (www.sciencedaily.com)

Like other kinds of cells, immune cells lose the ability to divide as they age because a part of their chromosomes known as a telomere becomes progressively shorter with cell division. As a result, the cell changes in many ways, and its disease fighting ability is compromised.

But a new UCLA AIDS Institute study has found that a chemical from the Astragalus root, frequently used in Chinese herbal therapy, can prevent or slow this progressive telomere shortening, which could make it a key weapon in the fight against HIV

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Spanish scientists create extra-long-lived mice

piggy submitted, created time 1 month 3 weeks (www.enews20.com)

Spanish scientists have created "super-mice" that are cancer-resistant and live up to forty percent longer, media reported Friday.

The mice were subjected to genetic engineering by researchers from the cancer research centre CNIO and Valencia University.

The key to the experiment was an enzyme called telomerase, which lengthens chromosome ends known as telomeres.

Telomerase allows cells to keep dividing and is believed to increase longevity, but it also heightens the risk of cancer

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How Worms Protect Their Chromosomes

Live slow die young

jane2007 submitted, created time 11 months 1 week (www.nature.com)

Active people could be up to 10 years "younger" than couch potatoes, at least according to one measure of biological age.

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Centromeres were derived from telomeres during the evolution of the eukaryotic chromosome

diggman submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.pnas.org)

The centromere is the DNA region of the eukaryotic chromosome that determines kinetochore formation and sister chromatid cohesion. Centromeres interact with spindle microtubules to ensure the segregation of chromatids during mitosis and of homologous chromosomes in meiosis. The origin of centromeres, therefore, is inseparable from the evolution of cytoskeletal components that distribute chromosomes to offspring cells. Although the origin of the nucleus has been debated, no explanation for the evolutionary appearance of centromeres is available

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Telomere length of cord blood-derived CD34+ progenitors predicts erythroid proliferative potential

medal submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.nature.com)

"Excessive telomere shortening has been demonstrated in inherited and acquired blood disorders, including aplastic anemia and myelodysplastic syndromes. It is possible that replicative exhaustion, owing to critical telomere shortening in hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs), contributes to the development of cytopenias in these disorders. "

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Cancer Cells Put In Forced Rest By Short Chromosomes

collapsar submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (www.medicalnewstoday.com)

A Johns Hopkins team has stopped in its tracks a form of blood cancer in mice by engineering and inactivating an enzyme, telomerase, thereby shortening the ends of chromosomes, called telomeres.

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