Activation of telomerase enzyme to increase telomere length in humans.
Telomerase, also called telomere terminal transferase, is an enzyme made of protein and RNA subunits that elongates chromosome. Telomerase is found in fetal tissues and also tumor cells.
Hello Hamed Hekmatnezhad
We all have the gene for telomerase, but it isn’t switched on in most adult cells. It is only active in sperm cells, egg cells, embryo cells and adult stem cells. There is a reason why telomerase is not active everywhere all the time. Telomeres act as ‘molecular sensors’ of genomic damage and help limit the replication of cells with highly damaged DNA. If telomerase enzyme is activated in human cells, the cells might be able to divide indefinitely, but there would be other problems that would be associated with it.
It is known that cancer cells have found a way to turn on telomerase and use it to essentially become immortal. If telomerase enzyme is activated, dividing cells will accumulate genetic errors, which in turn will affect proteins, thereby affecting function of the cells. Though there are error-correcting pathways in the cells they may not be 100% efficient. So, keeping telomeres long and enabling cells to continue dividing regardless of how much damage they’ve accumulated allows cancers to form and grow. In other words, humans will still die (of cancer) if not by aging.
So, telomerase activity must be altered under highly controlled conditions, like only in certain cells or only for certain period of time.
Regards.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41388-019-0872-9
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