BACKGROUND Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein enzyme that synthesises telomeres after cell division and maintains chromosomal length and stability thus leading to cellular immortalisation. The hTERT (human telomerase reverse transcriptase) subunit seems to be the rate-limiting determinant of telomerase and knowledge of factors controlling hTERT transcription may be useful in therapeutic strategi...

Telomerase dysfunction contributes to cellular senescence. Recent advances indicate the importance of senescence in maintaining vascular cell function in vitro. Human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) overexpression is thought to lead to resistance to apoptosis and oxidative stress. However, the mechanism in endothelial lineage cells is unclear. We tried to generate an immortal endotheli...

Cell division is closely related to telomerase activity (hTERT mRNA). Lower expression of lymphocitic hTERT mRNA may easily cause cell aging, which is not beneficial to maintaining a durable lymphocyte division. To date, there is no study to investigate IFNα therapy on hTERT mRNA expression in PBMCs of patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). We quantitatively detected hTERT mRNA from study sub...

Telomerase is a specialized reverse transcriptase that is responsible for telomere length maintenance. As in other organisms, the minimal components required for an active human telomerase are the template-providing telomerase RNA (hTR) and the enzymatic entity telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT). Here, we explored the structure of hTR and the hTERT-induced conformational changes within hT...

The hTERT gene encodes the telomerase catalytic subunit that plays a key role in cancer cell immortalization. Earlier, hTERT amplification was detected in squamous cell cervical carcinomas (SCC), however possible relations between elevated hTERT mRNA level and gene amplification was not studied. Here, we compared the hTERT expression and copy number in the same tumors by quantitative real-time ...

BACKGROUND Telomerase catalytic subunit (hTERT) gene re-expression is a rate limiting step for the activity of telomerase, a key enzyme implicated in cellular immortalisation and transformation. AIMS To determine the potential role of hTERT protein in gallbladder carcinogenesis. MATERIAL/METHODS hTERT protein was analysed by means of immunohistochemistry in 89 gallbladder tissue samples: 16...

Telomerase activation is critical for the immortalization of primary human keratinocytes by the high-risk HPV E6 and E7 oncoproteins, and this activation is mediated in part by E6-induction of the hTERT promoter. E6 induces the hTERT promoter via interactions with the cellular ubiquitin ligase, E6AP, and with the c-Myc and NFX-1 proteins, which are resident on the promoter. In the current study...

Telomerase activation is a common feature of most types of human cancers. Although several studies have shown that activation of telomerase might participate in the progression of tumors, the mechanism by which telomerase activation causes the invasion and metastasis of tumors remains unclear. In this study, we transfected a vector containing the full-length cDNA of hTERT into a telomerasenegat...

hTERT, the human telomerase reverse transcriptase, is highly expressed in stem cells and embryonic tissues but undetectable in most adult somatic cells. To understand its repression mechanisms in somatic cells, we investigated the endogenous hTERT gene regulation during differentiation of human leukemic HL60 cells. Our study revealed that silencing of the hTERT promoter was a biphasic process. ...

Activatable cell-penetrating peptides (aCPPs) allow non-viral, low cytotoxic and selective delivery of compounds into target cells for cancer therapy. In tumour cells, up-regulation of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) frequently occurs and is being considered as a target in cancer diagnosis and treatment. siRNA sequence that target hTERT mRNA can silence the gene and reduce hTERT ...