The appreciation that there might be something special about chromosome ends began
in the 1930s through 2 independent observations. Herman Muller,
working with fruit flies, noticed that x rays caused chromosome breakages and that
the broken ends subsequently fused with each other. He noticed that the real ends
of chromosomes never took part in these fusion events, and he concluded chromosome
ends were sealed in some way. At about the same time, Barbara McClintock
2
observed in maize that dicentric chromosomes (chromosomes with 2 centromeres) broke
at mitosis and that the broken ends fused with each other. Again, the natural chromosome
ends were not involved. She also noticed that the fusion events did not happen in
embryonic cells; the broken ends here were “healed” somehow.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: September 25, 2013
Accepted:
August 30,
2013
Received:
August 26,
2013
Footnotes
P. J. Mason is supported in part by grant R01 106695 from the National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health.
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 Mosby, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
