In cells where telomerase is normally inactive, it can become active by accident and often, cancer will develop as a result. Cancer typically occurs when cells undergo DNA replication and division more frequently than is required by the organism for survival. This leads to growth of cancerous tumors. Using what you learned about telomerase in this video and this lesson, predict how telomerase activity can lead to cancer.

Cancer cells achieve proliferative immortality by activating or upregulating the normally silent human TERT gene (hTERT) that encodes telomerase, a protein with reverse transcriptase activity that complexes with other proteins and a functional RNA (encoded by hTR, also called hTERC) to make a ribonucleoprotein enzyme.

Explanation:

A rare cell that escapes crisis almost universally does so by reactivating telomerase and this cell can now become a cancer cell with limitless potential to divide. Almost all cancer cells have short telomeres and thus inhibitors of telomerase should drive such cancer cells into apoptotic cell death. Yet, each time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter. When they get too short, the cell no longer can divide and becomes inactive or "senescent" or dies. This process is associated with aging, cancer, and a higher risk of death.

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lesson summarykaryotypes a genome is the full set of all the genetic information that an organism carries in its dna. chromosomes arebundles of dna and protein found in the nucleus of a eukaryotic cell.

stimulus is a change in the environment that causes an organism to react. the response is the reaction to the stimulus. some examples of stimuli for zebras are drought, to many predators, and bad feeding grounds such as dead grass or plants. zebras respond to stimuli just like all other living organisms