An alternate splicing variant of the human telomerase catalytic subunit inhibits telomerase activity.

ABSTRACT: Telomerase, a cellular reverse transcriptase, adds telomeric repeats to chromosome ends. In normal human somatic cells, telomerase is repressed and telomeres progressively shorten, leading to proliferative senescence. Introduction of the telomerase (hTERT) cDNA is sufficient to produce telomerase activity and immortalize normal human cells, suggesting that the repression of telomerase activity is transcriptional. The telomerase transcript has been shown to have at least six alternate splicing sites (four insertion sites and two deletion sites), and variants containing both or either of the deletion sites are present during development and in a panel of cancer cell lines we surveyed. One deletion (beta site) and all four insertions cause premature translation terminations, whereas the other

SUBMITTER: Yi X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1507981 | biostudies-literature | 2000 Sep-Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature