Synthetic DNA Nanocircles can be used to elongate telomeres and thereby rejuvenate tissues. Nanocircles consist of multiple repeats of the complement of telomere repeat sequences. Of particular interest are nanocircles that contain multiple repeats of the complement of the human telomere repeat sequence.

Nanocircles can be used as templates for polymerases to make or to extend new telomere sequences on an existing DNA or RNA molecule. They can be used to extend the lifespan of normal cell populations, and can also be used to induce apoptosis and death in cancerous cells. Nanocircles can be used in living cells, and when so used may function without the addition of polymerase or nucleotides due to the presence of polymerase and nucleotides in the cells. Biomedical and therapeutic applications such as the treatment of macular degeneration, treating the effects of skin aging, treating liver degeneration, and both in vitro and in vivo anti-cancer applications have been under investigations. Additionally, the use of nanocircles in the treatment of primary cells outside of the body for extension of lifespan of the cell population is being attempted by Telomolecular.

Telomere-encoding nanocircles are easier to produce and to store than telomerase enzyme. Because they are much smaller than plasmids, they can be readily synthesized in large quantities and in any sequence using a DNA synthesizer. Because they can be constructed to contain only telomere sequence, they can uniquely catalyze the extension of purely natural telomeric sequences. In addition, they can be designed to add non-natural sequences to a telomere or to a telomere sequence primer. They can be used to extend the length of telomeres on natural or artificial chromosomes. Nanocircles can be used to treat cancer without requiring genetic engineering of the cancer cells. These nanocircles can be used to extend the lifespan of non-cancerous cell populations in culture, providing enhanced materials for biomedical research, tissue engineering, and transplantation. Accordingly, nucleic acid nanocircles overcome many of the problems with the used compositions and methods.