Telomerase - - amino acid composition???

[Patrick O'Neil]

On 16 Apr 1995, Mark Gardner wrote:


> H.Kugler at ix.netcom.com (Dr. Hans J. Kugler) wrote:
> 
> > We did a lit search to find the amino acid composition (not sequence)
> > of telomerase) and couldn't find anything.
> > Has this been done? If yes, anybody have a reference?
> >                              Hans J. Kugler, PhD
> >                   Editor, PREVENTIVE MEDICINE UP-DATE
> 
> There is quite a lot at this address
> 
> http://aeiveos.wa.com/agethry/telomere/
> 

What you will find is that there are many papers dealing with telomere 
structure, function, and replication, but that in spite of all the 
research, no protein component of any telomerase has yet been able to be 
identified.  What HAS been found is the RNA template portion of the 
holoenzyme both in Tetrahymena and very recently, in S. cerevisiae 
(called TLC1:  Gottschling, D. E. and Singer, M. S. 1994.  TLC1: template 
RNA component of Saccharomyces cerevisiae telomerase.  Science 266:404-409).

I have here a HUGE PILE of papers dealing with telomeres from various 
aspects as a result of a research proposal I needed to produce.  A few of 
them are:

1.  Zakian, V. A. and Schulz, V. P.  1994.  The saccharomyces PIF1 DNA 
helicase inhibits telomere elongation and de novo telomere formation.  
Cell 76:145-155.

2.  Greider, C. W. and Autexier, C. 1994.  Functional reconstitution of 
wild-type and mutant Tetrahymena telomerase.  Genes & Dev. 8:563-575.

3.  Gasser, S. M. and Palladino, F.  1994.  Telomere maintenance and gene 
repression: a common end?  Curr. Opin. Cell Biol.  6:373-379.

4.  Greider, C. W. 1994.  Mammalian telomere dynamics:  healing, 
fragmentation, shortening and stabilization.  Curr. Opin. Gene. Dev. 
4:203-211.

5.  Greider C. W. and Mantell, L. L.  1994.  Telomerase activity in 
germline and embryonic cells of Xenopus.  EMBO J. 13(13):3211-3217.

6.  Shore, D.  1994.  RAP1: a protean regulator in yeast.  TIG 
10(11):408-412  **(you will find that in yeast, where many of the genes 
that affect telomeres are characterized, that RAP1 and its partners play 
a major part in several activities, including telomere regulation...it is 
very complex)** 

These are a good start, certainly, and they will point you to many more. 
Essentially, telomerase activity can be detected but none of the direct
players other than the template for Tetrahymena and yeast telomerase are
known for certain.  It makes certain proposals for research rather 
difficult to develop without compasses to point out a direction...

Patrick