Using the methodology outlined in the “Methods” section, the protein associated with the given amino acid sequence was identified as “Homo sapien Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase.” or “TERT.” The Protein-Protein Blast search had a query length of 1022 a.a.

The highest S value was 1994 with an e value of 0.0, 100% identities, 100% positives and 0% gaps.² The accession number for TERT is AAD30037. The complete amino acid sequence can be viewed by selecting “FASTA” on the “Display” option. For convenience, the complete amino acid sequence is presented here:

TOTAL LENGTH: 1132 amino acids³

Since no related structures were available for the human telomerase reverse transcriptase, a search was conducted on the protein page under "Structure." The closest match was:

37540-Crystal Structure of the Essential N-terminal Domain of Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (secondary structure) from Tetrahymena thermophila

The above structure represents a “tubes” model of the N-terminal (or TEN) Domain of the TERT protein in Tetrahymena thermophila, a ciliated protozoan. Each chain (A⁴, B⁵ and C⁶) has 199 amino acids. The presence of amino acid residues allows for telomerase catalysis and binding of a single-stranded telomeric DNA primer which is added to the ends of chromosomes.⁷ Meanwhile, the C-terminus can bind to RNA, giving the TEN domain the ability to bind to both RNA and telomeric DNA.⁷ Telomerase also plays a key role in cellular proliferation and tumorigenesis, making its understanding extremely crucial to cancer studies, as we will soon see.⁸ 

Ó 2007 Faiz Siddiqui