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Structural biology

A solution to the telomerase puzzle

Nature volume 496, pages 177–178 (2013)Cite this article

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Telomerase synthesizes DNA sequences that protect the integrity of chromosome ends. A model for how the components of this enzyme complex co-assemble offers insight into its structure and function. See Article p.187

Early research on the mechanism of DNA replication uncovered a startling fact: each round of cell division slightly shortens the ends of chromosomal DNA, which if left unchecked would eventually lead to the loss of essential genetic material1. This 'end replication problem' is solved by telomeres — structures at the ends of chromosomes that contain a series of non-coding DNA repeats, and which become shorter themselves but protect the coding regions from damage2. To synthesize and maintain telomeres in rapidly dividing cells, the enzyme telomerase comes into play3. The discovery that telomerase has a key role in the immortalization of cancer cells by preventing telomere loss during cancer-cell division4 has sparked efforts to understand the chemical structure of this enzyme complex. But despite more than two decades of research, many details of telomerase structure have remained unclear, until Jiang and colleagues' report5 on page 187 of this issueFootnote 1.

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Figure 1: The telomerase jigsaw puzzle.

Notes

  1. *This article and the paper5 under discussion were published online on 3 April 2013.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Benjamin M. Akiyama is in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology and the Center for Molecular Biology of RNA, University of California, Santa Cruz.,

    Benjamin M. Akiyama

  2. Michael D. Stone is in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Center for Molecular Biology of RNA, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA.,

    Michael D. Stone

Authors
  1. Benjamin M. Akiyama
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  2. Michael D. Stone
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Correspondence to Michael D. Stone.

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Akiyama, B., Stone, M. A solution to the telomerase puzzle. Nature 496, 177–178 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12090

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