Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 2, 2026

Utilizing Murine Inducible Telomerase Alleles in the Studies of Tissue Degeneration/Regeneration and Cancer
Published on: April 13, 2015
Recognition of a chromosome truncation site associated with alpha-thalassaemia by human telomerase
1Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06510.
Abstract:
Telomeres define the ends of chromosomes; they consist of short tandemly repeated DNA sequences loosely conserved in eukaryotes (G1-8(T/A)1-4). Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein which, in vitro, recognizes a single-stranded G-rich telomere primer and adds multiple telomeric repeats to its 3' end by using a template in the RNA moiety. In conjunction with other components, telomerase may balance the loss of telomeric repeats due to DNA replication. Another role of telomerase may be the de novo formation of telomeres. In eukaryotes like Tetrahymena, this process is an integral part of the formation of macronuclear chromosomes. In other eukaryotes this process stabilizes broken chromosomes. A case of human alpha-thalassaemia is caused by a truncation of chromosome 16 that has been healed by the addition of telomeric repeats (TTAGGG)n. Using an in vitro assay, I show here that human telomerase correctly recognizes the chromosome 16 breakpoint sequence and adds (TTAGGG)n repeats. The DNA sequence requirements are minimal and seem to define two modes of DNA recognition by telomerase.
More Related Videos
10:01Observation and Quantification of Telomere and Repetitive Sequences Using Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) with PNA Probes in Caenorhabditis elegans
Published on: August 4, 2016
09:13Generation of Cancer Cell Clones to Visualize Telomeric Repeat-containing RNA TERRA Expressed from a Single Telomere in Living Cells
Published on: January 17, 2019
Related Concept Videos
Replication in Eukaryotes
Telomeres and Telomerase
Alternative RNA Splicing
There are five types of alternative RNA splicing that vary in the ways the pre-mRNA segments are removed or retained in the mature mRNA. The first...
Replicative Cell Senescence
Replication in Eukaryotes
Many Proteins Orchestrate Replication at the Origin
Eukaryotic replication follows many of the same...