BACKGROUND Aortic dissection is an age-related and lethal vascular disease. Aging, which is associated with degeneration, is the major risk factor of aortic dissection. Telomeres are specialized DNA structures located at the end of eukaryotic chromosomes, the telomere length could be considered as an index of vascular aging. The purpose of present study was undertaken to investigate the relatio...

Although shortened telomeres have been found in many cancers, elongated telomere length has been observed as an early response after low-dose treatment with various chemical carcinogens in vitro and animal experiments, suggesting low-dose exposure to carcinogenic chemicals may function as a tumour promoter at the very early stage of carcinogenesis in humans. This cross-sectional study was perfo...

Barrett's oesophagus is a premalignant metaplastic condition that predisposes patients to the development of oesophageal adenocarcinoma. However, only a minor fraction of Barrett's oesophagus patients progress to adenocarcinoma and it is thus essential to determine bio-molecular markers that can predict the progression of this condition. Telomere dysfunction is considered to drive clonal evolut...

length varies by DNA extraction method: implications for epidemiologic research. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2013;22: 2047-54. 24. Hofmann JN, Hutchinson AA, Cawthon R et al. Telomere length varies by DNA extraction method: implications for epidemiologic research letter. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2014;23:1129-30. 25. Denham J, Marques F, Charchar F. Leukocyte telomere length variati...

Telomerase counteracts telomere erosion that stems from incomplete chromosome end replication and nucleolytic processing. A precise understanding of telomere length homeostasis has been hampered by the lack of assays that delineate the nonuniform telomere extension events of single chromosome molecules. Here, we measure telomere elongation at nucleotide resolution in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. T...

Lower socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly associated with an increased risk of morbidity and premature mortality, but it is not known if the same is true for telomere length, a marker often used to assess biological ageing. The West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study was used to investigate this and consists of three cohorts aged approximately 35 (N = 775), 55 (N = 866) and 75 years (N = 544) at th...

Telomere lengths are maintained in many cancer cells by the ribonucleoprotein enzyme telomerase but can be further elongated by increasing telomerase activity through the overexpression of telomerase components. We report here that increased telomerase activity results in increased telomere length that eventually reaches a plateau, accompanied by the generation of telomere length heterogeneity ...