Short strands of tandem hexameric repeats known as telomeres cap the ends of linear repeats protect chromosomes from degradation and prevent chro-mosomal end-joining, a phenomenon that could occur due to the aremaintainedby the activity of the enzyme total number of telomeric repeats at the terminal end of a chromosome determines the telomere length, which in addition to its importance in chromosomal stabilization is a useful indica-tor of telomerase activity in normal and malignant tissues
