Detection of telomerase activity in different cancer tissues: a diagnostic marker

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein enzyme that plays an important role in cell immortalization and carcinogenesis. It is not detectable in normal somatic cells. In this report, we examined the usefulness of telomerase activity for diagnosing cancer by utilizing telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) assay. Telomerase activity was analyzed in cancer tissue samples (breast, prostate, lung) using highly sensitive non-isotopic PCR-based TRAP assay. In total, 45 histologically diagnosed specimens were analyzed including breast cancer (10), prostate cancer (10), lung cancer (10) and normal tissue samples (breast, prostate and lung) (15). In nine out of ten breast cancer, eight out of ten prostate cancer and ten out of ten lung cancer samples showed telomerase activity. Telomerase activity was detected in positive control and in all most all tumor samples but not detected in normal, heat treated and negative control samples. Detection of telomerase is important for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of cancer.