1997, A GOOD YEAR FOR TELOMERASE

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein enzyme specialized in telomere elong ation which may be involved in the control of cell proliferation, and consequently could play a role in oncogenesis. 1997 was a very excitin g year for telomerase understanding. First, the sequence of the human telomerase catalytic subunit revealed strong homologies with known rev erse transcriptases. Second the production of viable mice deleted for the RNA moiety of the enzyme showed that telomerase is essential to ma intain telomere length in germ cells but is not required for tumour fo rmation.