TELOMERES

TELOMERES
• Telomeres are the special structures that prevent the continuous loss of DNA at
the end of the chromosomes during the course of replication.
• Thus, they protect the ends of the chromosomes, and are also responsible to
prevent the chromosomes from fusing with each other.
• Telomeres act as caps that protect the internal regions of the chromosomes and
they are worn down a small amount in each round of replication.
Telomeres are many repeat sequences of six nucleotides present at the ends of
eukaryotic chromosomes.
• telomers are found in a wide range of eukaryotic species from human to uni
cellular protists.
• Human telomeres contain thousands of repeat TTAGGG sequences, which
can be up to a length of1500 bp.
THE END REPLICATION PROBLEM
• During replication, the lagging strand is synthesized
discontinaously as short Okazaki fragments.
• However, when the replication fork reaches the end of a
linear chromosome, synthesis of the RNA primer for
the last Okazaki fragment becomes a problem.
• because there is no template available for the RNA
primer to bind.
• This results in an overhang at the telomere ends of the
chromosomes with gradual shortening after each round
of replication.
• About 75 TTAGGG repeat sequences are lost during
each mitosis. This is the end-replication problem.
• The enzyme telomerase is capable of elongating
telomeres and prevent shortening of chromosomes
during replication.
TELOMERASE AND IT ROLES
Telomeres are maintained by the enzyme telomerase, also called as telomere
terminal transferase. Telomerase is an unusual enzyme as it is composed of both
protein and RNA. In case of humans, the RNA component is 450 nucleotides in
length, and at the 5’-terminal and it contains the sequence 5’-CUAACCCUAAC-
3’. It may be noted that the central region of this sequence is complementary to the
telomere repeat sequence 5’-TTAGGG-3’. The telomerase RNA sequence can be
used as a template for extension of telomeres. The telomerase RNA base pairs to
the end of the DNA molecule with telomeres and extends to a small distance.
Then translocation of telomerase occurs and a fresh extension of DNA takes place.
This process of DNA synthesis and translocation is repeated several times until the
chromosome gets sufficiently extended. The extension process gets completed
through the participation of DNA polymerase and primase complex and sealing of
the new DNA Formed by DNA helicase.It may be noted here that as such the
telomeres do not encode proteins. Hence, when extended by telomerase, they need
not have to remain the same length, and some shortening will not pose any
problem. During the course of repeated cell cycles, there occurs progressive
shortening of telomeres, and this has to be prevented, which is appropriately
carried out by telomerase.
Thank you