Construct · 1 fields · 3 citations

telomerase: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

● anchor · a standalone construct Nearest construct by meaningtelomerecompare the meanings
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Every construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to telomerase is telomere.

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telomerase1 CONSTRUCTTelomeraseGREIDER · TELOMERE ENZYME

A single standalone construct; nearby constructs are located against it in the Collider. Tap a field for its definition, unit, and measures.

Molecular Biology

The enzyme that lengthens chromosome ends

Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn first identified telomerase in 1985 in extracts of the single-celled ciliate Tetrahymena, naming it a telomere terminal transferase: an enzyme that adds short, repeated DNA sequences onto the ends of chromosomes. In 1989 the same researchers showed that the enzyme carries its own RNA molecule, which serves as the template it copies to build each new repeat, so telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein, a partnership of a protein catalyst with a built-in RNA guide. The human catalytic protein subunit, hTERT, was identified by Nakamura and colleagues in 1997 as a reverse transcriptase that reads the RNA template to extend the telomere and offset the shortening that would otherwise occur each time a cell divides. What makes telomerase a landmark is that it resolves the end-replication problem, the inability of ordinary DNA-copying machinery to fully duplicate chromosome ends, and its activity marks cells that can divide indefinitely, such as germline and most cancer cells, apart from ordinary body cells in which it is largely switched off. The discovery led to the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Greider, Blackburn, and Jack Szostak.[1][2][3]

Unit
A ribonucleoprotein enzyme, a reverse transcriptase paired with an intrinsic template RNA
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Detected by its catalytic activity, classically with the telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP), and by identifying its RNA and protein (TERT) subunits

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Nearby constructs

senescence4 fields · 7 citationsjingle · one word, four constructsaging4 fields · 5 citationsjingle · one word, four constructstelomere1 fields · 4 citationsanchor · a standalone construct

References

  1. Greider, C. W., & Blackburn, E. H. (1985). Identification of a specific telomere terminal transferase activity in Tetrahymena extracts. Cell, 43(2), 405–413. https://doi.org/10.1016/0092-8674(85)90170-9
  2. Greider, C. W., & Blackburn, E. H. (1989). A telomeric sequence in the RNA of Tetrahymena telomerase required for telomere repeat synthesis. Nature, 337(6205), 331–337. https://doi.org/10.1038/337331a0
  3. Nakamura, T. M., Morin, G. B., Chapman, K. B., Weinrich, S. L., Andrews, W. H., Lingner, J., Harley, C. B., & Cech, T. R. (1997). Telomerase catalytic subunit homologs from fission yeast and human. Science, 277(5328), 955–959. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.277.5328.955

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