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Review
. 2018 Mar 5;373(1741):20160452.
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0452.

The role of telomeres in the mechanisms and evolution of life-history trade-offs and ageing

Andrew J Young  1
Affiliations
Review

The role of telomeres in the mechanisms and evolution of life-history trade-offs and ageing

Andrew J Young. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. .

Abstract

Evolutionary biology and biomedicine have seen a surge of recent interest in the possibility that telomeres play a role in life-history trade-offs and ageing. Here, I evaluate alternative hypotheses for the role of telomeres in the mechanisms and evolution of life-history trade-offs and ageing, and highlight outstanding challenges. First, while recent findings underscore the possibility of a proximate causal role for telomeres in current-future trade-offs and ageing, it is currently unclear (i) whether telomeres ever play a causal role in either and (ii) whether any causal role for telomeres arises via shortening or length-independent mechanisms. Second, I consider why, if telomeres do play a proximate causal role, selection has not decoupled such a telomere-mediated trade-off between current and future performance. Evidence suggests that evolutionary constraints have not rendered such decoupling impossible. Instead, a causal role for telomeres would more plausibly reflect an adaptive strategy, born of telomere maintenance costs and/or a function for telomere attrition (e.g. in countering cancer), the relative importance of which is currently unclear. Finally, I consider the potential for telomere biology to clarify the constraints at play in life-history evolution, and to explain the form of the current-future trade-offs and ageing trajectories that we observe today.This article is part of the theme issue 'Understanding diversity in telomere dynamics'.

Keywords: adaptation; cancer; constraint; oxidative stress; senescence; telomere.

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Conflict of interest statement

I declare I have no competing interests.

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