Flatworm Immortality

It appears that somehow the flatworm retains telomere integrity throughout an extended series of regeneration steps.  This is a clear direction in which to search for solutions to establishing cellular reproduction without a loss in integrity as we now have.

The flatworm always promised something toward biological immortality and has intrigued for a couple of centuries.  This looks like it will be helpful.

Although we are still in the early stages of research on life extension, work like this is more promising than I had expected so soon.

Flatworms could hold key to immortality 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9110202/Flatworms-could-hold-key-to-immortality.html

7:30AM GMT 28 Feb 2012

British researchers believe that the worms, which live in ponds and lakes, could live forever after examining their ability to repeatedly regenerate.

Experts from Nottingham University managed to create a colony of more than 20,000 flatworms from one original by chopping it into pieces and observing each section grow into a new complete worm.

They believe that it could help scientists develop new methods to allow humans to stay younger for longer.

"Our data satisfy one of the predictions about what it would take for an animal to be potentially immortal," Aziz Aboobaker, who led the research.

"The next goals for us are to understand the mechanisms in more detail and to understand more about how you evolve an immortal animal."

Flatworms, known as planarian worms, have long fascinated scientists because they have an extraordinary ability to regenerate.

A planarian worm split lengthways or crossways will regenerate into two separate living worms.

The researchers found that flatworms can continuously maintain the length of a crucial part of their DNA, known as telomeres, during regeneration.

Dr Aboobaker's team studied two types of planarian – those that reproduce sexually, like humans, and those that reproduce asexually by simply dividing in two.

Both types appear to regenerate indefinitely by growing new muscles, skin, guts and even entire brains again and again, but the asexual ones also renew their stocks of a key enzyme which may mean they can be immortal, the study said.

Scientists know that one of the key factors associated with ageing cells is telomere length.

Telomeres are sections of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes, protecting them from damage and the loss of cell functions linked to ageing.

Shorter telomeres are thought to be an indicator of faster ageing.