Telomerase and retrotransposons: which came first?
Eickbush, T.H.
Science 277(5328): 911-912
1997
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 9281073 Document Number: 483098
Recent reports, including one by Nakamura et al. in this issue, provide evidence for a link between telomerases and retrotransposons. When sequence comparisons of telomerase catalytic subunits were made, they were found to contain sequence domains common to all known reverse transcriptases. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the major branch of a phylogenetic tree of all known reverse transcriptases on which telomerases resided also contained the eukaryotic retrotransposable elements without long-terminal repeats (non-LTRs). The evidence regarding whether non-LTR retrotransposons or telomerases were the first to evolve in early eukaryotes is discussed.