Expression of telomerase subunits in gastric cancer

Abstract

To detect the expression of telomerase subunits (human telomerase reverse transcriptase, human telomerase associated protein 1 and human telomerase RNA) in gastric cancer and to examine the role that different telomerase subunits play in the gastric carcinogenesis, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect telomerase subunits messenger RNA in 24 samples of gastric cancer and corresponding non-cancerous tissue. The results showed that the positive rate of hTERT mRNA from gastric cancer and corresponding non-cancerous tissues was 100% and 25%, respectively. The former was significantly higher than the latter (χ²=26.4,P<0.01). The positive rate of hTEP1 mRNA from gastric cancer and corresponding non-cancerous tissues was 100% and 91.7%, respectively and no significant difference was found between them (χ²=2.1,P>0.05). The positive rates of hTR for gastric cancer and corresponding non-cancerous tissues were both 100% and no significant difference existed between them. It is concluded that in contrast to hTEP1 and hTR, the up-regulation of hTERT mRNA expression may play a more important role in the development of gastric cancer.

Keywords

gastric cancer / human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) / human telomerase associated protein 1 (hTEP1) / human telomerase RNA (hTR)