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Telomeres are sequences of DNA chains made of four nucleic bases: guanine (G), adenine (A), thymine (T), and cytosine (C). The length of telomeres in human blood cells is about 8,000 base pairs of sequences at birth. Telomeres protect our genetic data and prevent chromosomes from fraying as well as sticking to one another that may scramble an organism’s genetic information causing some illnesses, cancer, and death. Telomeres can also be described as the plastic caps on the tip of a shoelace, and it is naturally shortened with age. Most people usually lose 30 to 200 base pairs from the end of a cell’s telomeres when that cell divides each time. An elderly person has as low as 1,500 base pairs in a blood cell. Because of the progressively shortened telomeres, a cell will eventually become senescent, die, or sustain genetic damage that can cause cancer. Danish researchers found that abnormally short telomeres are not only related to some types of cancers but also associated with osteoarthritis, and they recently published their study result in the journal Arthritis Research & Therapy.
Osteoarthritis, which is a degenerative disease, is the most common form of arthritis. Many doctors believed that the damaged cartilage, the tissue which covers the ends of bones where they form a joint, may be the major cause of osteoarthritis. Danish researchers gathered several osteoarthritis patients who had joint replacement surgeries before and took the telomeres of cells from these patients’ knees. After closely examined those telomeres using a newly developed assay, these researchers discovered that two processes of telomeres occur in osteoarthritis: age-related shortening of telomeres and ultra-short telomeres. According to the study leader, Maria Harbo, age-related shortening of telomeres is the process of telomeres occurred when the cells no longer can divide and become inactive, senescent, or die. On the other hand, ultra-short telomeres that are possibly caused by compression press during our uses of joints may lead to cell senescence and failure of the joints to repair themselves. These researchers believed that ultra-short telomeres stress an important role of telomere shortening in osteoarthritis.
Although osteoarthritis is common in people over 65 years of age, injuries to a joint through sports, accidents, or daily living can also lead to joint degeneration and cause osteoarthritis, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Patients may reinjure their joints if they stress an injured joint before it has completely healed. There is no sufficient technology or strategy currently can help physicians to accurately determine when and whether these patients can safely resume activities. Many patients with severely injured joints will eventually have to undergo replacement surgeries. Therefore, the new study result of ultra-short telomeres by those Danish researchers may shed some light on further researches on osteoarthritis and bring hope to arthritis as well as joint injured patients in the near future.
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