title: Single-Molecule Studies of Telomeres and Telomerase.
abstract: Telomeres are specialized chromatin structures that protect chromosome ends from dangerous processing events. In most tissues, telomeres shorten with each round of cell division, placing a finite limit on cell growth. In rapidly dividing cells, including the majority of human cancers, cells bypass this growth limit through telomerase-catalyzed maintenance of telomere length. The dynamic properties of telomeres and telomerase render them difficult to study using ensemble biochemical and structural techniques. This review describes single-molecule approaches to studying how individual components of telomeres and telomerase contribute to function. Single-molecule methods provide a window into the complex nature of telomeres and telomerase by permitting researchers to directly visualize and manipulate the individual protein, DNA, and RNA molecules required for telomere function. The work reviewed in this article highlights how single-molecule techniques have been utilized to investigate the function of telomeres and telomerase.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064; email: mds@ucsc.edu.|Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80303 email: joe.parks@colorado.edu.
authors.forename: Joseph W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Parks
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064; email: mds@ucsc.edu.|Center for Molecular Biology of RNA, Santa Cruz, California 95064.
authors.forename: Michael D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Stone
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000648:ultrastructure; D000072760:Single Molecule Imaging / Q000379:methods; D019098:Telomerase / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D016615:Telomere / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D004247:DNA; D019098:Telomerase
keywords: single-molecule biophysics; telomerase; telomere