2Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Vavilova 32, Moscow, 117312 Russia; fax: (095) 135-1405
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received August 22, 2001
The telomere DNA of most eucaryotes consists of tandem DNA repeats and a number of associated proteins. The synthesis of the G-rich DNA strand is performed by the telomerase complex. The complementary C-strand is synthesized by DNA-dependent DNA polymerases. Using telomerase reverse transcriptase tagging followed by immunoprecipitation coupled with two-step purification, we have found a specific DNA-dependent DNA polymerase activity associated with telomerase of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Investigation of the biochemical properties of this DNA polymerase activity confirms the hypothesis of tight interaction of DNA polymerase delta with telomerase.
KEY WORDS: yeast telomerase, DNA-polymerase delta, affinity tagging, telomerase reverse transcriptase