Telomere

 Abstract

Telomere = Telo [Greek nouns telos (τέλος) 'end' ] + Mere [Greek (μέρος, root: μερ-) 'part.'], meaning ending part.

Telomere, meaning the ending part, is actually located at the end part of each chromosome.

Telomere protects the end of the chromosome from degradation by being truncated itself instead of chromosome.

It is known that telomere length is getting shortened during the chromosome replication in cell division,

as DNA polymerase cannot continue its duplicating work to the end part of chromosome.

So when duplication of chromosome is done, the end of the chromosome is shortened.

Telomere consists of repetitive nucleotide sequences. For vertebrates, the sequence of telomere nucleotides is TTAGGG.

This TTAGGG sequence is approximately repeated 2,500 times in human telomere.

So the shortened part of chromosome means the repetitive part of telomere, by truncation occurred during cell division.