Telomerase core components protect Candida telomeres from aberrant overhang accumulation. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Telomerase is a cellular reverse transcriptase that extends one strand (the G-strand) of the telomere terminal repeats. Aside from this role in telomere length maintenance, telomerase has been proposed to serve a protective function at chromosome ends, although this is not well understood mechanistically. Earlier analysis suggests that, in the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans, the catalytic reverse transcriptase subunit of telomerase (TERT/EST2) can protect telomeres against nucleolytic degradation. In this report we demonstrate that the RNA component (TER1) has a similar function; in addition to complete loss of telomerase activity and progressive telomere attrition, the ter1-DeltaDelta strains manifested a dramatic increase in the amount of G-strand overhangs, consistent with aberrant degradation of the complementary C-strand. We also demonstrate that a catalytically incompetent EST2 protein can suppress such overhang accumulation in the est2-DeltaDelta mutant to the same extent as the wild-type protein. Altogether, our data support the notion that the Candida telomerase core components mediate a protective function through a mechanism that is independent of its catalytic activity.

publication date

  • July 3, 2007

Research

keywords

  • Candida
  • DNA, Fungal
  • RNA
  • Telomerase
  • Telomere

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC1913905

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 34547422265

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1128/EC.0869-07

PubMed ID

  • 17609387

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 104

issue

  • 28