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Telomerase in Brain: The New Kid on the Block and Its Role in Neurodegenerative Diseases

Telomerase is an enzyme that in its canonical function extends and maintains telomeres, the ends of chromosomes. This reverse transcriptase function is mainly important for dividing cells that shorten their telomeres continuously. However, there are a number of telomere-independent functions known f...

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Autores principales: Saretzki, Gabriele, Wan, Tengfei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8145691/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33946850
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9050490
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author Saretzki, Gabriele
Wan, Tengfei
author_facet Saretzki, Gabriele
Wan, Tengfei
author_sort Saretzki, Gabriele
collection PubMed
description Telomerase is an enzyme that in its canonical function extends and maintains telomeres, the ends of chromosomes. This reverse transcriptase function is mainly important for dividing cells that shorten their telomeres continuously. However, there are a number of telomere-independent functions known for the telomerase protein TERT (Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase). This includes the shuttling of the TERT protein from the nucleus to mitochondria where it decreases oxidative stress, apoptosis sensitivity and DNA damage. Recently, evidence has accumulated on a protective role of TERT in brain and postmitotic neurons. This function might be able to ameliorate the effects of toxic proteins such as amyloid-β, pathological tau and α-synuclein involved in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, the protective mechanisms of TERT are not clear yet. Recently, an activation of autophagy as an important protein degradation process for toxic neuronal proteins by TERT has been described. This review summarises the current knowledge about the non-canonical role of the telomerase protein TERT in brain and shows its potential benefit for the amelioration of brain ageing and neurodegenerative diseases such as AD and PD. This might form the basis for the development of novel strategies and therapies against those diseases.
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spelling pubmed-81456912021-05-26 Telomerase in Brain: The New Kid on the Block and Its Role in Neurodegenerative Diseases Saretzki, Gabriele Wan, Tengfei Biomedicines Review Telomerase is an enzyme that in its canonical function extends and maintains telomeres, the ends of chromosomes. This reverse transcriptase function is mainly important for dividing cells that shorten their telomeres continuously. However, there are a number of telomere-independent functions known for the telomerase protein TERT (Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase). This includes the shuttling of the TERT protein from the nucleus to mitochondria where it decreases oxidative stress, apoptosis sensitivity and DNA damage. Recently, evidence has accumulated on a protective role of TERT in brain and postmitotic neurons. This function might be able to ameliorate the effects of toxic proteins such as amyloid-β, pathological tau and α-synuclein involved in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, the protective mechanisms of TERT are not clear yet. Recently, an activation of autophagy as an important protein degradation process for toxic neuronal proteins by TERT has been described. This review summarises the current knowledge about the non-canonical role of the telomerase protein TERT in brain and shows its potential benefit for the amelioration of brain ageing and neurodegenerative diseases such as AD and PD. This might form the basis for the development of novel strategies and therapies against those diseases. MDPI 2021-04-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8145691/ /pubmed/33946850 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9050490 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Saretzki, Gabriele
Wan, Tengfei
Telomerase in Brain: The New Kid on the Block and Its Role in Neurodegenerative Diseases
title Telomerase in Brain: The New Kid on the Block and Its Role in Neurodegenerative Diseases
title_full Telomerase in Brain: The New Kid on the Block and Its Role in Neurodegenerative Diseases
title_fullStr Telomerase in Brain: The New Kid on the Block and Its Role in Neurodegenerative Diseases
title_full_unstemmed Telomerase in Brain: The New Kid on the Block and Its Role in Neurodegenerative Diseases
title_short Telomerase in Brain: The New Kid on the Block and Its Role in Neurodegenerative Diseases
title_sort telomerase in brain: the new kid on the block and its role in neurodegenerative diseases
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8145691/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33946850
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9050490
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