telomerase

American  

[tuh-lom-uh-reys, ‑-reyz] / təˈlɒm əˌreɪs, ‑ˌreɪz /

noun

1. an enzyme, active chiefly in tumors and reproductive cells, that causes telomeres to lengthen: facilitates cell division and may account for the immortality of cancer cells.

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telomerase British  

/ tɛˈlɒməˌreɪz /

noun

1. an enzyme that is involved in the formation and repair of telomeres, so that chromosomes are not shortened during cell division

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telomerase Scientific  

/ tə-lŏm′ə-rās′,-rāz′ /

1. An enzyme that preserves the length of telomeres across cell divisions in germ cells, stem cells, and most cancer cells. A kind of reverse transcriptase, telomerase is an RNA-containing enzyme that synthesizes the DNA of telomeres by reverse transcription. It is active during DNA replication and is thought to play a role in the proliferation and apparent immortality of cells in which it is present. In cells that lack telomerase (that is, in most somatic cells of the body), the telomeres of chromosomes shorten and eventually disappear over repeated cell divisions. The inhibition of telomerase is being investigated as a method of killing cancerous cells.

2. See more at telomere

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Etymology

Origin of telomerase

telomere + -ase

Example Sentences

Having determined how telomerase is recruited, scientists were left with a fundamental question: how does CST-Polα/primase find its way to the telomere?

From Science Daily • Jun. 4, 2024

Without telomerase, telomeres would get shorter and shorter as a cell divides over and over again.

From Science Daily • Apr. 11, 2024

"For many decades we thought we knew what the end-replication problem was and how it was solved by telomerase," says de Lange.

From Science Daily • Feb. 28, 2024

But a solution was forthcoming: Liz Blackburn and Carol Greider discovered telomerase, an enzyme that adds the telomeric repeats to the ends of chromosomes.

From Science Daily • Feb. 28, 2024

By the early nineties, a scientist at Yale had used HeLa to discover that human cancer cells contain an enzyme called telomerase that rebuilds their telomeres.

From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot