Vitamin C Forum

Traditionally, it has been observed that white blood cells known as T-lymphocytes perform the function of activating telomerase, which delays the onset of a cell’s deterioration. In their paper, the team demonstrates that some T cells were able to lengthen telomeres “by acquiring telomere vesicles from antigen-presenting cells (APCs) independently of telomerase action.”

Once these T cells make contact with APCs, it instigates a degradation of a protein complex in the latter cells known as shelterin, which is thereby “donated” to telomeres after being removed by a telomere-associated protein known as TZAP, and thereafter carried in extracellular fluid sacks, or vesicles, to the synapses that form junctions between immunological nerve cells.