RE: Choose how long you live

From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Wed Jul 24 2002 - 18:53:27 MDT


Joao Magalhaes wrote:

Lately, I've been moving toward the DNA damage theory. Yet I'm not sure as
to how it can work. I mean, somatic mutations don't appear to be the cause
of aging -- take Dolly as a proof. One hypothesis I've been thinking is
that aging alters the chromatin structures and thus affects gene expression
-- there are some results from yeast that show gene silencing due to
different structures of the chromosomes. Telomeres also affect gene
silencing and the chromatin structures.

### Remember your mitos!!!

The accumulation of mtDNA mutations is so far the best explanation for most
aspects of aging.

Rafal ( writing this after crunching through about 5 megabases of human
mtDNA today, and everyday for the last two weeks, planning to sequence a
grand total of 10,000 megabases over the next year or so)



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