image: A Soay sheep on the island of Hirta, St Kilda view more
Credit: Image credit: Martin Stoffel (University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom).
A nearly two-decade study of wild Soay sheep in Scotland finds that the average length of telomeres, repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes, is correlated with an individual's longevity, but finds no such correlation with telomere attrition, suggesting that the effect of telomere length on longevity may be genetic rather than environmental.
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Article #20-20563: "Heritable variation in telomere length predicts mortality in Soay sheep," by Hannah Froy et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Daniel H. Nussey, University of Edinburgh, UNITED KINGDOM; email: <dan.nussey@ed.ac.uk>
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences