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- FIGURE 6-6. The end replication problem and role of telomerase in
- circumventing it. The end of a DNA molecule is replicated on one
- strand by continuous replication proceeding to the end of the
- molecule, while the other strand is replicated discontinuously
- utilizing RNA primers and Okazaki fragments. Removal of the RNA
- primers and Okazaki fragment ligation leaves a region at one end of
- each daughter molecule unreplicated. If there were no mechanism to
- fill the gap, the chromosome end would get shorter with each round of
- replication. Telomerase solves this problem by extending the 3' end of
- the parental strand, thus providing an elongated template for the DNA
- polyermase to utilize. This allows the entire original genomic DNA
- sequence to be completely replicated. (After Greider CW. Bioessays
- 1990;12:363)
-