FREE NEJM E-TOC    HOME   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   CURRENT ISSUE   |   PAST ISSUES   |   COLLECTIONS   |   Search Term  Advanced Search

Sign in | Get NEJM's E-Mail Table of Contents — Free | Subscribe

Previous Volume 352:1481-1483 April 7, 2005 Number 14 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text PDF PDA Full Text Purchase this article Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited E-mail When Letters Appear Related Article by Yamaguchi, H. PubMed Citation

Telomeres are DNA–protein complexes at the ends of linear eukaryotic chromosomes. They consist of double-stranded, short, repeated sequences of nucleotides, a 3' single-strand overhang of nucleotides, and telomere-binding proteins. Telomeric DNA typically consists of G-rich tandem repeats 5 to 8 bp long (in humans, TTAGGG). In their location at the termini of chromosomes, telomeres maintain chromosomal stability and integrity and protect chromosomal ends against fusion, the degradation of terminal DNA by exonucleases, and recombination events.¹ Telomeric DNA also serves as a binding site for specific DNA-binding proteins that have critical functions in maintaining the function and structural integrity of telomeres.

. . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

From the Department of Hematology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands.

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Kimura, M., Hjelmborg, J. v. B., Gardner, J. P., Bathum, L., Brimacombe, M., Lu, X., Christiansen, L., Vaupel, J. W., Aviv, A., Christensen, K. (2008). Telomere Length and Mortality: A Study of Leukocytes in Elderly Danish Twins. Am J Epidemiol 167: 799-806 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Cantor, A. B., Shimamura, A. (2007). Cellular basis of hematopoiesis and marrow failure syndromes. ASH-SAP 2007: 23-44 [Full Text]  
• Aviv, A., Valdes, A. M, Spector, T. D (2006). Human telomere biology: pitfalls of moving from the laboratory to epidemiology. Int J Epidemiol 35: 1424-1429 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Alter, B. P. (2005). Bone Marrow Failure: A Child Is Not Just a Small Adult (But an Adult Can Have a Childhood Disease). ASH Education Book 2005: 96-103 [Abstract] [Full Text]