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- Title
Human telomerase contains two cooperating telomerase RNA molecules.
- Authors
Wenz, Christian; Enenkel, Barbara; Amacker, Mario; Kelleher, Colleen; Damm, Klaus; Lingner, Joachim
- Abstract
Telomerase uses a short stretch of its intrinsic RNA molecule as template for telomere repeat synthesis. Reverse transcription of the RNA template is catalyzed by the tetomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) protein subunit. We demonstrate that human tetomerase reconstituted from recombinant TERT and telomerase RNA runs as a dimer on a get filtration column and that it contains two tetomerase RNA molecules. Significantly, a telomerase heterodimer reconstituted from wild-type and mutant telomerase RNA is barely active when compared with the wild- type homodimer. We conclude that the tetomerase RNA templates in the active enzyme are interdependent and functionally cooperate with each other. We discuss models that may explain the biological and enzymatic roles of telomerase dimerization.
- Subjects
TELOMERASE; RNA; BIOMOLECULES; BIOSYNTHESIS; ENZYMES; DIMERS
- Publication
EMBO Journal, 2001, Vol 20, Issue 13, p3526
- ISSN
0261-4189
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/emboj/20.13.3526