TELOMERE LENGTH IN DIFFERENT AGE FRISIAN CATTLES.

The determination of cellular senescence characteristics is fundamental to the understanding of ageing and age-related diseases such as cancer. In this context the study of telomeres, the molecular clocks of the cells, and the evaluation of their length represents an alternative model system for studying replicative senescence and living beings ageing. In the present work the mean telomeric length of white blood cells was studied in bovines of different age by FISH and flow cytometry. The results have shown an effective and statistically significative reduction of the relative telomeric length (RTL) in relation to the chronological age of the animals. A greater RTL was found in the new-borns, a reduced RTL was found in the older group (upper to 7 years old) and middle RTLs were found in the other two groups (2-3 years old bovines and 11-12 months old bovines). However it still remains to be investigated the variability of RTL that has been found among the animals within the same group which has also been shown in other species like humans and may be implicated in different longevity