[3] The oligomer concept is contrasted to that of a polymer, which is usually understood to have a large number of units, possibly thousands or millions.
The units of an oligomer may be arranged in a linear chain (as in melam, a dimer of melamine); a closed ring (as in 1,3,5-trioxane, a cyclic trimer of formaldehyde); or a more complex structure (as in tellurium tetrabromide, a tetramer of TeBr4 with a cube-like core).
The major capsid protein VP1 that comprises the shell of polyomaviruses is a self-assembling multimer of 72 pentamers held together by local electric charges.
[3] Telomerization is an oligomerization carried out under conditions that result in chain transfer, limiting the size of the oligomers.
[4][3] (This concept is not to be confused with the formation of a telomere, a region of highly repetitive DNA at the end of a chromosome.)