Telomeres--unsticky ends
Shore, D.
Science 281(5384): 1818-1819
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 9776685 Document Number: 496910
A variety of reports in 1998 have started to explain how cells protect telomeres--the physical ends of eukaryotic chromosomes--from being joined together by recombinational or end-joining mechanisms. Telomeres are particularly hard for cells to maintain because the sophisticated surveillance systems that always monitor the integrity of DNA and DNA repair enzymes that fix any breaks discovered might easily mistake the ends of chromosomes for broken DNA in need of repair. The consequences of this are calamitous--unstable, dicentric chromosomes. The writer discusses the research being conducted in this field.