Affiliations 

  • 1 Universiti Sains Malaysia
MyJurnal

Abstract

The telomere and telomerase hypothesis of aging and cancer is based on the findings that most human tumors have telomerase activity while almost all normal human somatic cells do not. Telomeres are nucleoprotein structure that located 100-300 kb from the end of linear eukaryotic chromosomes (Blackburn et al, 2001; Yoo & Robinson, 2000). Human telomeres consist of thousand repetitive sequences TTAGGG with ranging from 5 to 20 kb (Figure 1) (Martin, 2002). In human cell, there are 92 telomeres which have several functions including protecting chromosome ends, to maintain chromosome stability, serve as an attachment point to the nuclear matrix and also involve in the cell replication.