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Telomerase also called telomere terminal transferase〔(What are telomeres and telomerase? )〕 is a ribonucleoprotein that adds the polynucleotide "TTAGGG" to the 3' end of telomeres, which are found at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. A telomere is a region of repetitive sequences at each end of a chromatid, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration or from fusion with neighbouring chromosomes. Telomerase is a reverse transcriptase enzyme that carries its own RNA molecule (with the pattern of "CCCAAUCCC" in vertebrates), which is used as a template when it elongates telomeres. ==History== The existence of a compensatory mechanism for telomere shortening was first predicted by Soviet biologist Alexey Olovnikov in 1973, who also suggested the telomere hypothesis of aging and the telomere's connections to cancer. Telomerase was discovered by Carol W. Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn in 1984 in the ciliate ''Tetrahymena''. Together with Jack W. Szostak, Greider and Blackburn were awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery. The role of telomeres and telomerase in cell aging and cancer was established by scientists at biotechnology company Geron with the cloning of the RNA and catalytic components of human telomerase and the development of a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based assay for telomerase activity called the TRAP assay, which surveys telomerase activity in multiple types of cancer. Its protein composition was identified in 2007 by Scott Cohen and his team at Children's Medical Research Institute (Australia).〔 The high-resolution protein structure of the ''Tribolium castaneum'' catalytic subunit of telomerase TERT was decoded in 2008 by Emmanuel Skordalakes and his team. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「telomerase」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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