Functional importance of telomerase pseudoknot revealed by single-molecule analysis.

Telomerase ribonucleoprotein (RNP) employs an RNA subunit to template the addition of telomeric repeats onto chromosome ends. Previous studies have suggested that a region of the RNA downstream of the template may be important for telomerase activity and that the region could fold into a pseudoknot. Whether the pseudoknot motif is formed in the active telomerase RNP and what its functional role is have not yet been conclusively established.

Stepwise protein-mediated RNA folding directs assembly of telomerase ribonucleoprotein.

Telomerase is an essential cellular ribonucleoprotein (RNP) that solves the end replication problem and maintains chromosome stability by adding telomeric DNA to the termini of linear chromosomes. Genetic mutations that abrogate the normal assembly of telomerase RNP cause human disease. It is therefore of fundamental and medical importance to decipher cellular strategies for telomerase biogenesis, which will require new insights into how specific interactions occur in a precise order along the RNP assembly pathway.