Telomere biology and telomerase regulation across species: evolutionary insights into aging, longevity, and genome stability.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review synthesizing mechanistic and comparative biological literature without systematic search or meta-analysis.
PubMed 42334703 · doi:10.1007/s11033-026-12182-2
What was done
This is a narrative review synthesizing literature from comparative genomics, functional biology, and computational modeling. It examines telomere maintenance mechanisms, the catalytic (TERT) and RNA (TERC) components of telomerase, evolutionary selection patterns, and age-related gene expression across diverse taxa.
What was found
The abstract reports no quantitative data or specific numerical findings. It notes that telomere shortening during cell division is countered by telomerase activity, that telomerase regulation varies substantially across species, and that these differences correlate with species-specific lifespans, genome stability, and aging patterns.
Why it matters
Synthesizing cross-species evolutionary patterns in telomere regulation helps clarify why longevity varies across organisms and informs computational models for aging research, conservation, and therapeutics.
Limits
The paper is a broad narrative review rather than a systematic review or primary empirical study. The abstract provides no quantitative metrics, search criteria, study counts, or species-specific comparative statistics.
Cited by
- supports The enzyme telomerase slows the shortening process of telomeres.