I was taking a Biology class today about cloning and DNA. My professor explained that if you made a clone of yourself, it would still be “your DNA age.”
So my question is: why does DNA age?
Will it be possible for humanity to discover a way to make clones that are born with new DNA?
In: Biology
The protein that copies DNA have a front that attaches to the DNA and pull it forwards while the rear is actually copying the genes. Once the front reaches the end of the DNA it can no longer pull itself forward and will therefore end the copying there. This leaves a tiny end that does not get copied and just falls off. To handle this our genes have tails called telomeres that does not have any genes. So you can cut off parts of the tail every time you copy the DNA without affecting how the cell works. The problem with this is that the tail is only so long. After copying the DNA enough times you have cut off the entire tail and start cutting off functional genes. This is what we mean by a cells age.
The solution to this is to use cells that is made to be copied. There are mechanisms to regrow the telomeres and our egg and sperm cells therefore have its full set of tails even though it have copied DNA. This is how we are able to clone animals today and still have them live to a natural old age.
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