The first architecture of telomerase holoenzyme | Society of Life Sciences (SoLS)

A Journal of Postdoctoral Research.

Jobs

Article

Authors

ISSN : 2328-9791

The first architecture of telomerase holoenzyme

Bo Liang

Harvard Medical School

Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, HHMI/Harvard Medical School,
Boston, MA, USA

bo_liang@hms.harvard.edu

Telomerase is a reverse transcriptase that maintains genome integrity by adding DNA repeats to chromosome ends called telomeres. Ever since the discovery of telomerase in Tetrahymena by Carol W. Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn in 1984, the telomerase holoenzyme drew great attention due to its central roles in regulating stem cell renewal and the immortality of many cancer cell types. Despite expanded studies of telomerase function in many organisms, little was known about the molecular architecture of telomerase holoenzyme. Because of its low abundance and complexity, the purification and reconstitution of homogeneous telomerase holoenzyme has consistently presented a challenge for structural studies.....