Figure 2

Stress-Induced Telomere Shortening (SITS) (left, A-C) allows for delayed aging when compared to the constant rate of Telomere Shortening (TS) (right, D-F). A) and D) show how the number of cells capable of replication change in time. In both cases, as cells divide, the average telomere length, <T>, decreases (B) and E)) and the number of accumulated mutations, <M> increases (C and F)). In B) and E) The colorcoded are the distribution of telomere lengths in the population, the average is shown by dotted line. Observe that in C) (but not in F) the rate of increase in M, d M/d t is slowing down at later time points. The results are shown for DNA damage <D> =0.25 and the cell-to-cell variation in DNA damage, $\frac{{\sigma }_D}{<D>}=1.5$. For TS case the constant rate of telomere shortening C o n s t=0.25.