Abstract
Telomere length has frequently been used as a means to predict the future life of cells. But by itself it can be a poor indicator of ageing or cell viability. What, then, is the important property of a telomere? Here recent findings are integrated into a new, probabilistic view of the telomere to explain how and when it can signal not only its own fate but also that of a cell.
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Acknowledgements
I thank C. Gross, I. Herskowitz, B. Panning and C. Smith for discussions and comments on the manuscript.
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Blackburn, E. Telomere states and cell fates. Nature 408, 53–56 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35040500
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35040500
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