Protein / target
Telomerase reverse transcriptase
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Template-free RNA nucleotidyltransferase
Strongest disease association
Autosomal recessive dyskeratosis congenita 4
Therapeutic position
Established drug target
Derived from structured UniProt, Open Targets and literature data on this page.
Protein profile
Canonical identity and biological annotation from UniProt.
Function overview
Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein enzyme essential for the replication of chromosome termini in most eukaryotes.
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Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein enzyme essential for the replication of chromosome termini in most eukaryotes. Active in progenitor and cancer cells. Inactive, or very low activity, in normal somatic cells. Catalytic component of the teleromerase holoenzyme complex whose main activity is the elongation of telomeres by acting as a reverse transcriptase that adds simple sequence repeats to chromosome ends by copying a template sequence within the RNA component of the enzyme. Catalyzes the RNA-dependent extension of 3'-chromosomal termini with the 6-nucleotide telomeric repeat unit, 5'-TTAGGG-3'. The catalytic cycle involves primer binding, primer extension and release of product once the template boundary has been reached or nascent product translocation followed by further extension. More active on substrates containing 2 or 3 telomeric repeats. Telomerase activity is regulated by a number of factors including telomerase complex-associated proteins, chaperones and polypeptide modifiers. Modulates Wnt signaling. Plays important roles in aging and antiapoptosis
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (60)Hide
Domains & features
Gene Ontology
- Cchromosome, telomeric region
- Ccytosol
- Cmitochondrial nucleoid
- Cnuclear speck
- Cnuclear telomere cap complex
- Cnucleolus
- Cnucleoplasm
- Cnucleus
- Cplasma membrane
- CPML body
- CRNA-directed RNA polymerase complex
- Ctelomerase catalytic core complex
Biological roles
What this protein does, drawn together from its UniProt function, Gene Ontology terms and Reactome pathways.
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Cell migration
- ·positive regulation of vascular associated smooth muscle cell migration
Cell-cycle regulation
- ·positive regulation of G1/S transition of mitotic cell cycle
Transcriptional regulation
- ·transcription coactivator binding
- ·positive regulation of miRNA transcription
- ·RNA-templated transcription
- ·siRNA transcription
Apoptosis & cell death
- ·negative regulation of endothelial cell apoptotic process
- ·negative regulation of neuron apoptotic process
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Concepts derived from UniProt GO Reactome — each badge above shows which sources supported that role.
Interaction neighbourhood
Proteins with the strongest functional or physical association. Node size and line weight reflect STRING confidence; hover or select a partner to inspect one association.
Functional and physical associations from STRING v12.0. Only associations with this protein are drawn — partner-to-partner links are not part of this evidence.
Drugs targeting this protein
How approved and investigational drugs engage this protein — mechanism and action type, direct vs complex targeting, and how broadly each acts across other targets. A drug-first view (the section above groups the approved ones disease-first); direct binders with few recorded targets are listed first.
Telomerase reverse transcriptase inhibitor
ChEMBL mechanism, action type, target identity and approved indications. Open Targets clinical status.
Translational evidence
Why this target matters therapeutically, strongest evidence first. Disease associations are gene-level (via the gene that encodes this protein) and open into the full confidence synthesis; the development universe, tractability and safety annotations are target-level, from Open Targets.
Strongest disease associations · via encoding gene TERT
Gene-level evidence surfaced through the gene TERTthat encodes this protein — not a direct protein–disease relationship. Ranked by Forefront's causal-directness weighting, so genetically- and clinically-evidenced diseases lead over ones that merely share the literature.
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This ranking differs from Open Targets' own: re-weighting moves genetically-evidenced diseases above more heavily co-mentioned ones. The evidence agreement range shows how closely the independent evidence families agree — it is not a statistical confidence interval, and nothing here is fitted to outcome data. Derived from Open Targets evidence types under Forefront weighting; the per-type scores above show the calculation.
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Drug development
2 compounds recorded · 2 approved
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Open Targets known-drugs universe. Drug name and highest clinical stage only — the disease relationship is NOT read from this slice (it carries trial-context noise); approved indications come from the canonical graph above.
Tractability
Small molecules — Emerging
Antibodies — Emerging
Protein degraders — Emerging
Other modalities — Strong
View underlying tractability evidence (6)Hide
Raw Open Targets tractability assessment buckets, by modality.
Clinical trials
Trials of drugs that target this protein — reached indirectly through those drugs, so a trial listed here studies the drug, not the protein. Ranked by active status, then clinical phase and recency, and spread across the targeting drugs.
View all trials (5)Hide
ClinicalTrials.gov via the drug-target graph.
What's happening now
Recent therapeutic activity around this target — regulatory actions, clinical trials and safety signals for a drug that targets this protein, plus publications where such a drug is a genuine subject. Every item is reached indirectly through the drug, not the protein itself; incidental mentions (a paper that merely measures a drug) and press items are excluded.
- Regulatory approval
Approval: Rytelo (EMA)
- New publicationImetelstat-mediated alterations in fatty acid metabolism to induce ferroptosis as a therapeutic strategy for acute myeloid leukemia.
Objective event titles are shown unmodified; the event kind and significance line are derived from structured fields. Forefront AttentionEvent stream aggregating Europe PMC Regulatory filings ClinicalTrials.gov.