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The telomerase is a protein–RNA complex that carries an RNA template for synthesizing a repeating, G-rich telomere DNA sequence. Only the part of the telomerase protein homologous to reverse transcriptase is shown here (green). A reverse transcriptase is a special form of polymerase enzyme that uses an RNA template to make a DNA strand; telomerase is unique in carrying its own RNA template with it at all times. (Modified from J. Lingner and T.R. Cech, Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 8:226–232, 1998.)