Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein polymerase that maintains telomere ends by addition of the telomere repeat TTAGGG. The enzyme consists of a protein component with reverse transcriptase activity, encoded by this gene, and an RNA component which serves as a template for the telomere repeat. Telomerase expression plays a role in cellular senescence, as it is normally repressed in postnatal somatic cells resulting in progressive shortening of telomeres. Deregulation of telomerase expression in somatic cells may be involved in oncogenesis. Studies in mouse suggest that telomerase also participates in chromosomal repair, since de novo synthesis of telomere repeats may occur at double-stranded breaks. Alternatively spliced variants encoding different isoforms of telomerase reverse transcriptase have been identified; the full-length sequence of some variants has not been determined. Alternative splicing at this locus is thought to be one mechanism of regulation of telomerase activity. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]
Overall distribution
Tissue specific distribution
Expression restricted in 1 cancer type(s)
Overall distribution
Tissue specific distribution
Gscore (Amp):
0.73 (Driver)
Gscore (Del):
0.00
Recurrently amplified in 3 cancer type(s)
Overall distribution
Tissue specific distribution
Mscore:
0.00
Overall
Tissue specific
Total fusion occurrence:
24 (Driver)
Fusions detected in 14 cancer type(s)
Overall
Tissue specific
Functional class:
Enzyme
JensenLab PubMed score:
3506.36 (Percentile rank: 98.88%)
PubTator score:
3555.38 (Percentile rank: 99.12%)
Target development/druggability level:
TchemThese targets have activities in ChEMBL or DrugCentral that satisfy the activity thresholds detailed below.
Tractability (small molecule):
Discovery PrecedenceTargets with ligands; Targets with crystal structures with ligands
Tractability (antibody):
Predicted Tractable - Medium to low confidenceTargets with GO cell component terms plasma membrane or secreted with low or unknown confidence; Targets with predicted signal peptide and transmembrane domains; GO cell component - medium confidence; Human Protein Atlas - high confidence
