DR. TARA L. BEATTIE

B.Sc. (Queen's), Ph.D. (Toronto) -Associate Professor, Department Biochemistry & Molecular Biology.

Affiliations: Member - Southern Alberta Cancer Research Institute. Cross appointment-Tom Baker Cancer Centre

 

Research Interests:

Telomerase is a specialized reverse transcriptase that uses an internal RNA template to direct telomere synthesis. In human cells, telomerase activity is associated with hTER, the telomerase RNA, the telomerase RNA binding proteins TEP1, dyskerin, L22 and hStau, and the telomerase reverse transcriptase TEP1. In vitro, hTER and hTERT are both necessary and sufficient to reconstitute telomerase activity in rabbit reticulocyte lysates. I am currently using this reconstitution assay to delineate the functional interactions that are required to reconstitute telomerase activity.

My research interests include both the elucidation of protein/RNA interactions that are essential for telomerase activity as well as the determination of the molecular basis of telomere length regulation in cancer and aging. It has recently been demonstrated that telomerase activity is essential for cellular proliferation and long-term viability of normal human cells in vivo. Knowledge of the composition and structure of the human telomerase complex will be critical to our understanding of how this interesting reverse transcriptase modulates telomere length and cell survival in cancer and aging.

Personnel:

Hayley Wyatt, PhD	Graduate Student
Alison Tsang	Graduate Student
Ms. Deidre Lobb	Technician
Dr. Nicholas Ting	PDF

 

View Pub Med for Recent publications and abstracts 

Recent Publications:

• Functional Multimerization of the Human Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase . Tara L. Beattie, Wen Zhou, Murray O. Robinson, and Lea Harrington Molecular Biology of the Cell, 2001, p. 6151-6160.
• Beattie, T.L., Zhou, W., Robinson, M.O., and Harrington L. (2000) Polymerization Defects within Human Telomerase are Distinct from telomerase RNA and TEP1 binding. Mol. Biol. Cell. 11, 3329-3340.
• Beattie, T.L., Zhou, W., Robinson, M.O., and Harrington L. (1998) Reconstitution of Human Telomerase Activity In Vitro. Current Biology, 8, 177-180.
• Sood, V., Beattie, T.L., and Collins, R.A. (1998) Identification of Phosphate Groups Involved in Metal Binding and Tertiary Interactions in the Core of the Neurospora VS Ribozyme. J. Mol. Biol.. 282, 741-750.
• Beattie, T.L, and Collins, R.A. (1997) Identification of Functional Domains in the Self-Cleaving Neurospora VS RNA Using Damage Selection. J. Mol. Biol.. 267, 830-840.
• Rastogi, T., Beattie, T.L., Olive, J.E., and Collins, R.A. (1996) A Long Range Pseudoknot is Required for Activity of the Neurospora VS Ribozyme. EMBO J. 15, 2820-2825.

Contact Information:

The University of Calgary,
Room 2AA20-HRIC Building
3280 Hospital Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta
Canada T2N 4N1
Phone: (403) 220-8328
Fax: (403) 270-0834
E-mail: tbeattie [at] ucalgary [dot] ca">tbeattie [at] ucalgary [dot] ca