The telomerase reverse transcriptase: components and regulation

The idea that chromosomes have special terminal structures first arose as a consequence of experiments conducted by Muller, who found that treatment of Drosophila with X-rays rarely resulted in terminal deletions or inversions of the chromosomes (Muller 1938). Complementary experiments in maize by McClintock expanded upon the idea that telomeres, the physical ends of chromosomes, are required for chromosome stability, by contrasting the breakage-fusion-bridge cycle resulting from broken dicentric chromosomes with the stability of chromosomes with intact termini (McClintock 1941, 1942). With the dawn of molecular biology, telomeres in most eukaryotes are now known to be composed of short repeated G-rich sequences complexed with proteins to form a special heterochromatin-like structure. More recent experimental manipulation of chromosome termini and of the proteins that bind them have confirmed the early observations of Muller and McClintock, showing that a primary role of telomeres is to insulate the ends of chromosomes both from fusion with other ends and