any of the specialized structures, consisting of a set of nucleotides, that form the terminal sections of a eukaryotic chromosome and that are essential for cellular replication
Origin of telomere
telo- + -meretelomere
tel·o·mereWebster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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telomere
noun
Either of the sections of DNA occurring at the ends of a chromosome.
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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Either of the sections of DNA occurring at the extreme ends of each chromosome in a eukaryotic cell. Telomeres consist of highly repetitive sequences of DNA that do not code for proteins, but function as caps to keep chromosomes from fusing together. The length of the telomere influences the stability of genetic information just interior of the telomere, since the nucleotide sequences at the ends of a chromosome are not copied by DNA polymerase. Successive copying can thus shorten telomeres, sometimes to the point that functional genes near the telomeres are lost, and this may play a role in cellular senescence and age-related diseases. In germ cells, stem cells, and some cancer cells, shortened telomeres can be extended by the enzyme telomerase, thus keeping both the telomeres and the genes near them functioning. Most somatic cells do not express telomerase, and the shortening of telomeres during each round of cell division may be part of the natural aging of cells.
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Noun
(plural telomeres)
- (genetics) Either of the sequences of DNA at each end of a eukaryotic chromosome.
English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.
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telomere - Medical Definition
n.
Either of the sections of DNA occurring at the ends of a chromosome.
The American Heritage Dictionary of Medicine © 2018 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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"Telomere." YourDictionary. LoveToKnow. www.yourdictionary.com/telomere.
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Telomere. (n.d.). In YourDictionary. Retrieved from https://www.yourdictionary.com/telomere
