Abstract
Current therapies for breast cancer include treatments that are toxic and often result in drug resistance. Telomerase, a cellular reverse transcriptase that maintains the ends of chromosomes (telomeres), is activated in the vast majority of breast cancers (over 90% of breast carcinomas) but not in normal adjacent tissues. Telomerase is thus an attractive target for both diagnosis and therapy because of its distinct pattern of expression. We address the use of telomerase in the diagnostics of breast pathology, as well as the use of telomerase inhibitors in the treatment and prevention of breast cancer.
Highlights
Overview of telomeres and the use of telomerase to compensate for telomere loss Human chromosomes contain repeated TTAGGG DNA sequences at their ends that provide genomic stability and a source of expendable DNA
Human telomerase is a protein complex consisting of a human telomerase reverse transcriptase catalytic subunit that uses the human telomerase RNA component of the complex as a template for adding TTAGGG repeats to the end of the chromosome [5,6,7]
Whereas further research is needed to prove the specificity of AZT, studies using both antisense oligonucleotides, such as 2′-O-methyl RNA directed against the human telomerase RNA component (hTR) template region, and dominant negative mutant human telomerase reverse transcriptase catalytic subunit (hTERT) have been shown to be effective specific telomerase inhibitors in immortalized breast epithelial and breast carcinoma cells in vitro
Summary
Department of Cell Biology, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Texas, USA Received: 27 December 2000 Revisions requested: 25 January 2001 Revisions received: 29 January 2001 Accepted: 10 February 2001 Published: 22 February 2001 This article may contain supplementary data which can only be found online at http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/3/3/146
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