ИСТИНА

Telomerase is a major participant in telomere homeostasis within eukaryotic cells. It is active in a number of cell types: stem, germ, embryonic and cancer cells. The majority of somatic cells doesn’t retain active telomerase, and its reactivation drives cancer transformation. Expression of telomerase reverse transcriptase is tightly regulated in cells, but the telomerase RNA component expresses constitutively. It was postulated that TR is long non-coding RNA (lncRNA). It is transcribed by RNA-polymerase II as a precursor that matures to the 451 nt catalytically active RNA. It is known that many lncRNAs contains open reading frames (ORFs) and сould be translated for their functionality. We analyzed hTR gene sequence and found out that premature form of hTR contains an open reading frame that was named hTERP (human Telomerase RNA Protein). The homologous ORFs were found encoded by telomerase RNA of the other species. There amino acid sequences are homologous for 27,7% with variations in RNA sequences. Evidences of hTR translation would be discussed. We speculate that translation of hTR may be essential for hTR maturation, such as tertiary structure folding or processing. Alternatively the protein itself may have some special function in telomere maintenance or elsewhere.