Available only in draft form.
Aging of biological cell lines is believed to be caused by geometric changes in the cells? DNA from one generation to the next. Some development changes are intrinsic to the cell and these changes also are believed to be caused by the same type of DNA geometric changes that cause aging. A mechanism is presented for incrementally changing the shape of the DNA for each cell division. The amount of change is large with the first generation, it decreases quickly with the first few subsequent divisions, but then it changes continually by small amounts throughout the life of the cell. These incremental changes are manifested as aging and development.
The mechanism presented consists of increasing the torsional strain in DNA by an increment at each cell division. The torsional strain induced is in one rotational direction for the template strand and in the opposite direction for the newly formed complementary strand. The strain is a result of the template being strained while the newly formed copy is unstrained when it hooks up to the template. After copying the template is released somewhat and the copy is strained. This strain causes the helicity of the DNA to increase with cell generation number. The change in shape is presumed to change gene expression from one generation to the next. This change in gene expression produces development changes and aging.
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