Vaults and telomerase share a common subunit, TEP1

Vaults are large cytoplasmic ribonucleoprotein complexes of undetermined function. Mammalian vaults have two high molecular mass proteins of 193 and 240 kDa. We have identified a partial cDNA encoding the 240-kDa vault protein and determined it is identical to the mammalian telomerase-associated component, TEP1. TEP1 is the mammalian homolog of the Tetrahymena: p80 telomerase protein and has been shown to interact specifically with mammalian telomerase RNA and the catalytic protein subunit hTERT. We show that while TEP1 is a component of the vault particle, vaults have no detectable telomerase activity. Using a yeast three-hybrid assay we demonstrate that several of the human vRNAs interact in a sequence-specific manner with TEP1. The presence of 16 WD40 repeats in the carboxyl terminus of the TEP1 protein is a convenient number for this protein to serve a structural or organizing role in the vault, a particle with eight-fold symmetry. The sharing of the TEP1 protein between vaults and telomerase suggests that TEP1 may play a common role in some aspect of ribonucleoprotein structure, function, or assembly.