Summary:
Essay describes aging as a result of telomeric shortening and damage.
Aging is the series of biological changes, involving many different processes, that over time eventually lead to functional impairment and death of an organism (1). One of the causes for aging is related to telomeres. Telomeres are the long stretches of non-coding DNA that are at the ends of chromosomes. Telomeres consist of as many as 2000 repeats of the sequence 5'TTAGGG 3'. They keep the ends of the different chromosomes in the cell from becoming entangled and sticking together. As the chromosomes are being replicated, the DNA polymerase moves along the DNA and copies it. However, the DNA polymerase cannot continue copying all the way to the end of the chromosome. Therefore, after each replication the telomeres of the 5' end of the lagging strand are shortened by approximately 30-200 base pairs. This shortening is.....
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