Plant chromosomes terminate in telomeres as in other eukaryotes. Telomeres are vital to genome stability and their malfunctioning is lethal. One of the core components of the telomere complex is telomerase. The enzyme activity depends on RNA (TER) and reverse transcriptase ( @entity2215 ) subunits. We describe here the isolation, sequencing and characterization of the telomerase reverse transcriptase catalytic subunit from the monocot plant @entity579 . (OsTERT). A single copy of this gene is present in the @entity579 genome. The protein predicted from the OsTERT sequence has all the signature motifs of the @entity2215 family members. Our data indicate that @entity579 telomerase activity is developmentally regulated and is high in in vitro tissue and cell culture. However, steady-state transcript levels of the @entity2215 gene do not seem to correlate with enzyme activity. Northern and RT-PCR analyses of the OsTERT gene transcript profile show multiple differentially spliced transcripts in both telomerase-positive and telomerase-negative tissues. Based on quantitative analysis of these transcripts, we speculate that the overall balance between the quantities of particular alternatively spliced transcripts may determine whether the @entity2215 protein(s) is active or not. The diversity of splicing variants detected suggests that, as recently discovered for @entity1 @entity2215 proteins, @entity579 @entity2215 protein variants may perform functions other than telomere maintenance.

Cloning and characterization of @entity579 ( XXXX ) telomerase reverse transcriptase, which reveals complex splicing patterns.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['mammalian'] @entity2215 :: ('7015', 'Gene') :: ['TERT'] @entity579 :: ('4530', 'Species') :: ['Oryza sativa L', 'rice']
@entity579 :: (4530,Species) :: ['Oryza sativa L']
