The telomerase enzyme exists as a large complex (ϳ1,000 kDa) in mammals and at minimum is composed of the telomerase RNA and the catalytic subunit telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT). In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, telomerase appears to function as an interdependent dimer or multimer in vivo (J. Prescott and E. H. Blackburn, Genes Dev. 11:2790-2800, 1997). However, the requirements for multimerization are not known, and it remained unclear whether telomerase exists as a multimer in other organisms. We show here that human TERT (hTERT) forms a functional multimer in a rabbit reticulocyte lysate reconstitution assay and in human cell extracts. Two separate, catalytically inactive TERT proteins can complement each other in trans to reconstitute catalytic activity. This complementation requires the amino terminus of one hTERT and the reverse transcriptase and C-terminal domains of the second hTERT. The telomerase RNA must associate with only the latter hTERT for reconstitution of telomerase activity to occur. Multimerization of telomerase also facilitates the recognition and elongation of substrates in vitro and in vivo. These data suggest that the catalytic core of human telomerase may exist as a functionally cooperative dimer or multimer in vivo.The catalytic subunit of telomerase, the telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), possesses the hallmark amino acid motifs of a reverse transcriptase (RT) (23,29,40,47). However, unlike viral RTs, telomerase is a unique eukaryotic RT that carries an intrinsic RNA template essential for the de novo addition of telomere sequences (reviewed in reference 19). Proteins associated with telomerase activity include TEP1 (22, 48), hsp90/p23 (18, 25), dyskerin (42, 43), L22 (32), and hStau (32) in mammals; the Sm proteins (54) as well as Est1p and Est3p,(26,56) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae; and p80, p95, and p43 in ciliates (1,11,21,35). TEP1 is not essential for telomerase activity in vitro or in vivo (5, 37). A subset of these associated factors are known to serve distinct roles in telomerase assembly and telomere length maintenance (15,16,27,34,41,43,51,54).In S. cerevisiae, different telomerase RNAs can functionally cooperate to form an active telomerase complex in vivo. Prescott and Blackburn demonstrated the presence of at least two primer recognition-elongation sites within S. cerevisiae telomerase (50). In addition, they showed that a mutant telomerase RNA incapable of telomere elongation could nonetheless support elongation in a diploid strain containing one mutant and one wild-type telomerase RNA (50). These results provided the first evidence that telomerase could form an active multimer in vivo that might contain, at minimum, two active sites (50). A recombinant reconstitution assay for human telomerase showed that two separately inactive, nonoverlapping fragments of human telomerase RNA could reconstitute telomerase activity in vitro (59). While consistent with a model of telomerase RNA multimerization, these results are also consistent with reconstitution of a single...