There were a couple of similar threads on this, however they didn't help me.
I understand what telomeres are and why the ends of chromosomes cannot be polymerized without the enzyme telomerase adding new nucleotides to the parent strand...allowing the lagging strand to be copied.
However, I do not understand why this would cause shortening instead of lengthening over time.
It seems to me that if telomerase is adding nucleotides to the parent strand each time, the DNA would lengthen over time instead of shorten.
Help?
Thanks.
I understand what telomeres are and why the ends of chromosomes cannot be polymerized without the enzyme telomerase adding new nucleotides to the parent strand...allowing the lagging strand to be copied.
However, I do not understand why this would cause shortening instead of lengthening over time.
It seems to me that if telomerase is adding nucleotides to the parent strand each time, the DNA would lengthen over time instead of shorten.
Help?
Thanks.
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