telomerase activity in chicken embryo fibroblast cell cultures infected with marek's disease virus

background : telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein, which adds telomeric repeats onto the 3’ end of existing telomers at the end of chromosomes in eukaryotes. one hypothesis states that telomere length may function as a mitotic clock, therefore expression of telomerase activity in cancer cells may be a necessary and essential step for tumor development and progression. methods : the detectability of telomerase activity in chicken embryo fibroblast (cef) cells infected with different passages of marek's disease virus (mdv) was tested with the trapeze® telomerase detection kit at passages 14 (p14), p80/1 and p120 for the woodland strain, and passage 9 (p9) for the mpf57 strain. results : the results showed increased telomerase activity in mdv woodlands strain at p14 and mpf57 strain at p9. conclusion : our results suggest that mdv-transformed cells at low passage are a suitable system for the study of telomerases in tumor development and for testing telomerase-inhibiting drugs.