Eli5 why can’t organisms regenerate tissue indefinetly, why do we die of old age
In: Biology
Telomeres are little bits of dna that protect our dna in replication. When our cells replicate, a little piece of the telomeres falls off. Eventually there are no telomeres left, and little parts of our essential DNA falls off and we are unable to replicate properly. With cloned animals like Dolly the sheep, they already have shortened telomeres depending on the age of the animal from which they were cloned, and therefore they start life as if they were aged quite a bit.
Some life forms have very long telomeres that lets them live longer, others have the ability to repair telomeres that causes them to not age at all, or age for unrelated reasons.
Here’s an article on species that have special aging properties:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality
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