Correlation between Telomerase Activity and Compornents in Gastric Cancer

Naoyuki Tanaka, Kazuhito Miyachi and Masakatsu Sunagawa

First Department of Surgery, Dokkyo University School of Medicine

The correlations between telomerase activity in gastric cancer and two groups of factors, hTR and hTERT, and TRF1 and TRF2 were compared and analyzed. Telomerase activity was semi-quantatively measured by the F-TRAP technique in 51 gastric cancer patients, and hTR and hTERT activity was quantified by the real-time PCR technique. TRF1 and TRF2 were also analyzed immunohistochemically to determine the frequency of these factors in cell nuclei. Telomerase activity was detected in 78.4% of the cancer tissue samples, and the mean activity value was 88.7. hTR activity was detected in 98.0% of the cancer samples, and its mean activity was 8.349: hTERT activity was detected in 96.0% of the cancer samples, and its mean activity was 3.05. TRF1 and TRF2 were detected in the cell nuclei of 45.1% and 42.9%, respectively, of the cancer samples. The frequency of telomerase activity detection was significantly higher among the samples with high hTR activity (p=0.04), and the frequency of telomerase activity detection was significantly higher among the samples with high hTERT activity (p=0.03). However, no correlations were observed between telomerase activity and either TRF1 or TRF2 expression. These findings suggested that hTR and hTERT are correlated with the expression of telomerase activity.

Key words
telomerase, hTR, hTERT, TRF1, TRF2

Reprint requests
Naoyuki Tanaka First Department of Surgery, Dokkyo University School of Medicine 880 Kitakobayasi, Mibumachi, Shimotsugagunn, Tochigi, 321-0293 JAPAN

Accepted
October 31, 2000

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