{"id":126438,"date":"2021-08-18T10:23:17","date_gmt":"2021-08-18T17:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/beware-the-molecular-parasites-involved-in-aging-and-disease"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:23:17","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T17:23:17","slug":"beware-the-molecular-parasites-involved-in-aging-and-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/beware-the-molecular-parasites-involved-in-aging-and-disease","title":{"rendered":"Beware the \u2018molecular parasites\u2019 involved in aging and disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/beware-the-molecular-parasites-involved-in-aging-and-disease2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019ve ever seen a petunia with artfully variegated petals, then you\u2019ve seen transposons at work. The flower\u2019s showy color patterns are due to transposable elements, or DNA sequences that can move locations within a genome. Yet when it comes to transposons\u2019 effects on humans, the results might not be as lovely or desirable.<\/p>\n<p>As researchers learn more about these so-called mobile genetic elements, they\u2019ve found increasing evidence that transposons influence and even promote aging and <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/age-related+diseases\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">age-related diseases<\/a> like cancer as well as neurogenerative and autoimmune disorders, says John Sedivy, a professor of biology and director of the Center on the Biology of Aging at Brown. Sedivy is the corresponding author of a new review article in <i>Nature<\/i> that discusses the latest thinking and research around transposons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s put it this way: These things can be pretty dangerous,\u201d said Sedivy. \u201cIf they are uncontrolled, and there are many examples of that, transposons can have profound consequences on most forms of life that we know of.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve ever seen a petunia with artfully variegated petals, then you\u2019ve seen transposons at work. The flower\u2019s showy color patterns are due to transposable elements, or DNA sequences that can move locations within a genome. Yet when it comes to transposons\u2019 effects on humans, the results might not be as lovely or desirable. As [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-life-extension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}