Abstract

Telomerase is an enzyme that adds DNA sequence repeats ("TTAGGG" in all vertebrates) to the 3' end of DNA strands in the telomere regions, which are found at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. This region of repeated nucleotide repeats called telomeres contain condensed DNA material and prevents constant loss of important DNA from chromosome ends. As a result, every time the chromosome is copied only a couple of telomeres are lost, which causes no damage to the organism. Telomerase is a reverse transcriptase that carries its own RNA molecule, which is used as a template when it elongates telomeres, which are shortened after each replication cycle. The existence of a compensatory shortening of telomere (telomerase) mechanism 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. This review focus on role of telomerase in various diseases.

Key words: Telomere, chromatin, aging, cancer, hereditary diseases.