ReviewMechanisms of ageing and development
Coevolution of telomerase activity and body mass in mammals: from mice to beavers.
Review in Mechanisms of ageing and development. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
59 citing papers in PubMed, 139 citations in OpenAlex.
- Telomere biology and telomerase regulation across species: evolutionary insights into aging, longevity, and genome stability.Molecular biology reports · 2026Review
- Advancing In Vitro Tools for Oncologic Research in Cats and Dogs.Veterinary sciences · 2025Review
- Limited cell-autonomous anticancer mechanisms in long-lived bats.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Telomeres in skin aging.Biogerontology · 2025Review
- Telomere dynamics in maturing frogs vary among organs.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Epigenetic predictors of species maximum life span and other life-history traits in mammals.Science advances · 2024Article
- Telomere length is an epigenetic trait - Implications for the use of telomerase-deficient organisms to model human disease.Disease models & mechanisms · 2024Article
- Age-associated changes in innate and adaptive immunity: role of the gut microbiota.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Review
- Why and when should organisms elongate their telomeres? Elaborations on the 'excess resources elongation' and 'last resort elongation' hypotheses.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Chromosome-level Asian elephant genome assembly and comparative genomics of long-lived mammals reveal the common substitutions for cancer resistance.Aging cell · 2023Article
- Article
- Comparative analysis of bats and rodents' genomes suggests a relation between non-LTR retrotransposons, cancer incidence, and ageing.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Canonical and extra-telomeric functions of telomerase: Implications for healthy ageing conferred by endurance training.Aging cell · 2023Review
- Both age and social environment shape the phenotype of ant workers.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Two aspects of longevity are associated with rates of loss of telomeres in birds.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Tieing together loose ends: telomere instability in cancer and aging.Molecular oncology · 2022Review
- Genetic and Epigenetic Inheritance at Telomeres.Epigenomes · 2022Review
- Telomeres, aging, and cancer: the big picture.Blood · 2022Article
- Zidovudine inhibits telomere elongation, increases the transposable element LINE-1 copy number and compromises mouse embryo development.Molecular biology reports · 2021Article
- The influence of phylogeny and life history on telomere lengths and telomere rate of change among bird species: A meta-analysis.Ecology and evolution · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Telomerase is repressed in the majority of human somatic tissues. As a result human somatic cells undergo replicative senescence, which plays an important role in suppressing tumorigenesis, and at the same time contributes to the process of aging. Repression of somatic telomerase activity is not a universal phenomenon among mammals. Mice, for example, express telomerase in somatic tissues, and mouse cells are immortal when cultured at physiological oxygen concentration. What is the status of telomerase in other animals, beyond human and laboratory mouse, and why do some species evolve repression of telomerase activity while others do not? Here we discuss the data on telomere biology in various mammalian species, and a recent study of telomerase activity in a large collection of wild rodent species, which showed that telomerase activity coevolves with body mass, but not lifespan. Large rodents repress telomerase activity, while small rodents maintain high levels of telomerase activity in somatic cells. We discuss a model that large body mass presents an increased cancer risk, which drives the evolution of telomerase suppression and replicative senescence.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.