Evaluation of telomerase mRNA (hTERT) in colon cancer

Boldrini,L.; Faviana,P.; Gisfredi,S.; Zucconi,Y.; Di Quirico,D.; Donati,V.; Berti,P.; Spisni,R.; Galleri,D.; Materazzi,G.; Basolo,F.; Miccoli,P.; Pingitore,R.; Fontanini,G.

doi:10.3892/ijo.21.3.493

Evaluation of telomerase mRNA (hTERT) in colon cancer

Authors:
- L. Boldrini
- P. Faviana
- S. Gisfredi
- Y. Zucconi
- D. Di Quirico
- V. Donati
- P. Berti
- R. Spisni
- D. Galleri
- G. Materazzi
- F. Basolo
- P. Miccoli
- R. Pingitore
- G. Fontanini
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Affiliations: Department of Oncology, Transplants and Advanced Technologies in Medicine, University of Pisa, 56100 Pisa, Italy
Published online on: September 1, 2002 https://doi.org/10.3892/ijo.21.3.493
Pages: 493-497

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Abstract

Telomerase activation, a cardinal requirement for immortalization, is a crucial step in the development of malignancy and requires the induction of the catalytic component, human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), encoded by the hTERT gene. By reverse transcription-PCR, using primers within the reverse transcriptase domain of hTERT, we investigated telomerase messenger in 8 adenomatous and 9 dysplastic polyps, and in 32 paired cancer-normal mucosa specimens, one liver and one spleen metastasis from patients resected for sporadic colorectal cancer. Telomerase messenger was absent or very low in normal mucosa and in adenomatous polyps. Dysplastic polyps and adenocarcinoma samples showed hTERT mRNA, with higher levels in cancer tissues compared to dysplastic lesions. A high telomerase messenger level was shown to be associated with late-staged cancers and with metastasis; thus, detection of telomerase messenger may be useful in the early diagnosis of colon cancer, and telomerase may be a new target for therapeutic intervention.