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Quantitative Assays for Telomerase: Means for Studying the End

Department of Chemical Pathology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, New Territories Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Fax 852 2194 6171, E-mail loym@cuhk.edu.hk

The ends of human chromosomes consist of several kilobases of simple telomeric repeats (TTAGGG)_n (1). Telomeres are important for maintaining chromosome structure by protecting the chromosomes from DNA degradation, end-to-end fusions, rearrangements, and chromosome loss. Because DNA polymerases synthesize DNA in the 5' to 3' direction and require an RNA primer for initiation, telomeric DNA may be lost at chromosome ends after cell division unless the termini are specifically extended by an alternative mechanism. This loss of telomeric DNA has been postulated to be one of the bases of cellular and possibly organismal senescence (1). The known mechanism for preventing this loss of telomeric DNA is based on a ribonucleoprotein polymerase called telomerase, which contains an integral RNA with a short template element that directs the synthesis of telomeric repeats at chromosome ends (2).

In humans, telomerase activity is present in the germ line but is not detected in many nondiseased adult tissues (3). In contrast to nondiseased tissues, telomerase activity is found in many human tumors (4). It is thought that the reactivation of telomerase activity, which maintains telomere length, plays an important role in the immortalization of cancer cells. Thus, considerable interest is focused on . . . [Full Text of this Article]

References

The following articles in journals at HighWire Press have cited this article:

				J. B. de Kok, T. J.M. Ruers, G. N.P. van Muijen, A. van Bokhoven, H. L. Willems, and D. W. Swinkels Real-Time Quantification of Human Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase mRNA in Tumors and Healthy Tissues Clin. Chem., March 1, 2000; 46(3): 313 - 318. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				I. Bièche, C. Noguès, V. Paradis, M. Olivi, P. Bedossa, R. Lidereau, and M. Vidaud Quantitation of hTERT Gene Expression in Sporadic Breast Tumors with a Real-Time Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction Assay Clin. Cancer Res., February 1, 2000; 6(2): 452 - 459. [Abstract] [Full Text]