Distinguished Lecture Series Guest Speaker: Juli Feigon
Professor
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
University of California, Los Angeles
Date & Time: Tuesday, March 6, 2012, 11:00AM
Location: Klaus 1116E
Host: Jeffrey Skolnick
Abstract: Telomerase is a unique ribonucleoprotein complex that catalyzes the addition of telomeric DNA repeats onto the 3’ ends of linear chromosomes. Telomerase activity is low or undetectable in most somatic cells, but it is highly active in about 90% of cancer cells. Telomerase has a large RNA component that provides an integral template for catalysis by the unique telomerase reversse transcriptase, and other regions of the RNA essential for catalysis, 3’ end processing, localization, accumulation, and assembly. All vertebrate telomerase RNAs contain a catalytically essential core domain that includes the template and a pseudoknot with extended helical subdomains. The core domain, together with the CR4/CR5 domain and TERT, comprise the minimal functional complex for catalysis. Results from our laboratory on the structure and dynamics of elements of the core, CR4/CR5, and CR7 domains, a model of the complete core domain, and what they reveal about telomerase function, will be presented.
