CentralNotice From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation , search For other uses, see Telomere (disambiguation) . Human chromosomes (grey) capped by telomeres (white) Telomere A telomere is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromatid , which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration or from fusion with neighboring chromosomes. Its name is derived from the Greek nouns telos ( τέλος ) 'end' and merοs ( μέρος , root: μερ- ) 'part.' For vertebrates , the sequence of nucleotides in telomeres is T T A G G G . This sequence of TTAGGG is repeated approximately 2,500 times in humans. [ 1 ] During chromosome replication , the enzymes that duplicate DNA cannot continue their duplication all the way to the end of a chromosome, so in each duplication the end of the chromosome is shortened [ 2 ] (this is because the s...