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Simultaneous decrease of telomere length and telomerase activity with ageing of human amniotic fluid cells
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
EDITOR
Telomeres are specific
chromatin structures that cap chromosome ends and protect against
chromosome degradation and end to end fusion.1 As
conventional DNA polymerases cannot fully replicate the ends of linear
DNA, a progressive loss of telomeric sequences occurs in each round of
DNA replication. Telomerase adds telomere repeats onto chromosome ends
to overcome this end replication problem.1 Telomerase
activity is detectable in human germ cells, most immortalised cell
lines, and in 80-90% of human tumour samples, in which the telomere
length is preserved.2 However, telomerase activity is not
detected in most normal human somatic cells, with the result that
telomere loss occurs with each cell division. After extended doublings,
these cells enter a period of slow growth called senescence or crisis
and stop dividing. This process may depend on
critical telomere loss in one or a few chromosomes. The shortest
telomere in a cell may also play an
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