According to our research, we believe that straightforward blood tests for these proteins could serve as an effective screening tool for some types of cancer and other human diseases "Griffith, a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, made the statement. "Because telomeres shorten with age, these tests may also provide a measure of "telomere health."

The following submission statement was provided by /u/NadiyaJeba:

According to our research, we believe that straightforward blood tests for these proteins could serve as an effective screening tool for some types of cancer and other human diseases "Griffith, a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, made the statement. "Because telomeres shorten with age, these tests may also provide a measure of "telomere health."

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1181id4/scientists_make_stunning_discovery_find_new/j9erb62/

The researchers hypothesized that the RNA generated from human telomeres could generate a series of toxic proteins, which they termed VR (valine-arginine) and GL (glycine-leucine). The VR protein is present in elevated amounts in some human cancer cells and cells from patients suffering from diseases resulting from defective telomeres. The researchers believe that the amount of VR and GL in our blood may steadily rise as we age, providing a new biomarker for biological age as contrasted to chronological age.

This is connecting cancer and aging, again.

Oh, and by the way, there’s also protomolecule in there apparently.

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Lucas Werner is loving this. First thing I thought of when I saw this was that guy from Washington state.

What I don’t get is that if telomeres shorten with aging, shouldn’t their capacity to produce these proteins decrease? Is rising levels in the blood with age solely due to production from cancerous cells?

As I understand it, I though telomeres have encoded a certain number of cell replications to stop (cell damage over time) cancer. Death evolved to stop cancer.

lucas werner is throwing confetti in the air right now

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That’s a good thought! DNA and RNA have many regulatory elements though which can cause proteins to be made or to stop them from being made. It could be that a regulatory element on the ends of the telomeres stop these toxic proteins from being made, but when we age and the telomeres shorten the regulatory elements get lost. This causes the toxic proteins to be made, causing age related damage.

ELI5: The off switch for the toxic proteins could be on the ends of the telomeres, and when they shorten the switch gets turned on, causing age related damage.

Why is the DNA in the telomeres transcripted into RNA if the purpose of it is to act as a buffer zone to prevent DNA damage at the ends of chromosomes?