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DNA Replication and Telomeres
Concepts tested here
- Structure of telomerase
All Questions
2005 AIPMT 1 question
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Telomerase is an enzyme which is a -Telomeres are the repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes; they shorten at each round of replication because DNA polymerase cannot copy the extreme 3' end.
The enzyme telomerase adds these repeats back to the ends of the chromosomes.
Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein: it consists of a protein part with reverse transcriptase activity and an RNA component.
The RNA component carries a sequence complementary to the telomere repeat and acts as the template for synthesising the telomeric DNA.
So it is neither a simple protein nor only RNA, and it is not a DNA sequence itself.
So telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein.