What is a Telomere?

Wouldn’t it be great to live forever? Well actually the answer to that might actually be in your DNA. Yes, you read that right there could possibly be a scientific way to life forever. But before we get into that let’s backtrack a bit.

So, what is this magical thing in your DNA? It is called a telomere. Telomeres are essentially caps at the ends of a chromosome (tightly wound DNA in your cells), think of it like a cap at the end of a shoelace. When cells divide the DNA is replicated, but since our DNA is linear it cannot be replicated completely. Therefore, part of our DNA has to be “cut off”, this part is our telomeres. How can you just cut off part of your DNA? It does sound pretty absurd. But let me tell you that the human body is so detailed that it has a solution to this problem. Telomeres are repeating the same DNA sequences over and over. They don’t actually hold important genetic information, so it is okay for them to be shortened over time.

Okay so we got the background information down, so let’s connect it back to aging. We now know that every time a cell divides the telomeres shorten. There is only so much telomere on a chromosome, so when it runs out it signals that it is time for the cell to die, also known as apoptosis. The less cells you have the more you age. So that is exactly the reason why telomeres could be the key to living forever.

Although, this may not be attainable any time soon, for now it is best if we live a healthy and happy lifestyle to decrease aging. And who knows maybe we will see it in our lifetime.

Picture Source: yourgenome.org