Abstract
A hallmark of cancer cells is the ability to proliferate indefinitely. This acquisition of an immortal lifespan usually requires the activation of telomerase, the enzyme that elongates telomeres. Human telomerase is minimally composed of the reverse transcriptase subunit hTERT, and the RNA subunit hTR. While hTR is ubiquitously expressed in human cells, the hTERT subunit is generally transcriptionally repressed in most normal somatic cells, but is illegitimately activated to restore telomerase activity in cancer cells. Indeed, in the thousands of different human tumours assayed, 85% were scored positive for telomerase activity. However, the levels of telomerase activity detected in tumour samples can vary substantially and even some normal somatic cells have been found to have low levels of enzyme activity. As the functional significance of low levels of telomerase activity is unclear, we investigated whether there is a minimum level of telomerase activity required for tumourigenesis. Using mutants of hTERT that induce varying levels of telomerase activity, we show that there does indeed exist a threshold of activity required for the processes of immortalization, transformation and tumourigenesis. Thus, low levels of activity detected in certain somatic cells would not be expected to contribute to tumourigenesis, nor does the mere detection of telomerase in cancer cells necessarily signify an immortal lifespan.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 50 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $5.18 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Armbruster BN, Banik SS, Guo C, Smith AC, Counter CM . 2001 Mol. Cell. Biol. 21: 7775–7786
Banik SSR, Guo C, Smith AC, Margolis SS, Richardson DA, Tirado CA, Counter CM . 2002 Mol. Cell. Biol. (in press)
Bodnar AG, Ouellette M, Frolkis M, Holt SE, Chiu CP, Morin GB, Harley CB, Shay JW, Lichtsteiner S, Wright WE . 1998 Science 279: 349–352
Broccoli D, Young JW, de Lange T . 1995 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92: 9082–9086
Buchkovich KJ, Greider CW . 1996 Mol. Biol. Cell. 7: 1443–1454
Cifone MA, Fidler IJ . 1980 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 77: 1039–1043
Counter CM, Avilion AA, Le Feuvre CE, Stewart NG, Greider CW, Harley CB, Bacchetti S . 1992 EMBO J. 11: 1921–1929
Counter CM, Gupta J, Harley CB, Leber B, Bacchetti S . 1995 Blood 85: 2315–2320
Counter CM, Hahn WC, Wei W, Caddle SD, Beijersbergen RL, Lansdorp PM, Sedivy JM, Weinberg RA . 1998 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95: 14723–14728
Counter CM, Hirte HW, Bacchetti S, Harley CB . 1994 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91: 2900–2904
Elenbaas B, Spirio L, Koerner F, Fleming MD, Zimonjic DB, Donaher JL, Popescu NC, Hahn WC, Weinberg RA . 2001 Genes Dev. 15: 50–65
Farwell DG, Shear KA, Koop JI, Bonnet GA, Matthews CP, Reuther GW, Coltrera MD, McDougall JK, Klingelhutz AJ . 2000 Am. J. Pathol. 156: 1537–1547
Hahn WC, Counter CM, Lundberg AS, Beijersbergen RL, Brooks MW, Weinberg RA . 1999 Nature 400: 464–468
Halvorsen TL, Leibowitz G, Levine F . 1999 Mol. Cell. Biol. 19: 1864–1870
Harle-Bachor C, Boukamp P . 1996 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93: 6476–6481
Harley CB, Futcher AB, Greider CW . 1990 Nature 345: 458–460
Harley CB . 2002 Oncogene 21: 494–502
Harrington L, Zhou W, McPhail T, Oulton R, Yeung DS, Mar V, Bass MB, Robinson MO . 1997 Genes Dev. 11: 3109–3115
Hastie ND, Dempster M, Dunlop MG, Thompson AM, Green DK, Allshire RC . 1990 Nature 346: 866–868
Kilian A, Bowtell DDL, Abud HE, Hime GR, Venter DJ, Keese PK, Duncan EL, Reddel RR, Jefferson RA . 1997 Hum. Mol. Genet. 6: 2011–2019
Kim NW, Piatyszek MA, Prowse KR, Harley CB, West MD, Ho PL, Coviello GM, Wright WE, Weinrich SL, Shay JW . 1994 Science 266: 2011–2015
Kim NW, Wu F . 1997 Nucleic Acids Res. 25: 2595–2597
Kiyono T, Foster SA, Koop JI, McDougall JK, Galloway DA, Klingelhutz AJ . 1998 Nature 396: 84–88
Kolquist KA, Ellisen LW, Counter CM, Meyerson M, Tan LK, Weinberg RA, Haber DA, Gerald WL . 1998 Nat. Genet. 19: 182–186
Meyerson M, Counter CM, Eaton EN, Ellisen LW, Steiner P, Caddle SD, Ziaugra L, Beijersbergen RL, Davidoff MJ, Liu Q, Bacchetti S, Haber DA, Weinberg RA . 1997 Cell 90: 785–795
Nakamura TM, Morin GB, Chapman KB, Weinrich SL, Andrews WH, Lingner J, Harley CB, Cech TR . 1997 Science 277: 955–959
Norrback KF, Dahlenborg K, Carlsson R, Roos G . 1996 Blood 88: 222–229
Norrback KF, Roos G . 1997 Eur. J. Cancer 33: 774–780
Ouellette MM, Aisner DL, Savre-Train I, Wright WE, Shay JW . 1999 Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 254: 795–803
Rich HN, Guo C, McLendon RE, Bigner DD, Wang XF, Counter CM . 2001 Cancer Res. 61: 3556–3560
Sellers WR, Novitch BG, Miyake S, Heith A, Otterson GA, Kaye FJ, Lassar AB, Kaelin Jr WG . 1998 Genes Dev. 12: 95–106
Shay JW, Bacchetti S . 1997 Eur. J. Cancer 33: 787–791
Stewart N, Bacchetti S . 1991 Virology 180: 49–57
Vaziri H, Benchimol S . 1998 Curr. Biol. 8: 279–282
Yasumoto S, Kunimura C, Kikuchi K, Tahara H, Ohji H, Yamamoto H, Ide T, Utakoji T . 1996 Oncogene 13: 433–439
Zhu J, Wang H, Bishop JM, Blackburn EH . 1999 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 96: 3723–3728
Acknowledgements
We thank members of the Counter lab for their helpful advice. This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Health, administered through the National Cancer Institute (CA82481 and CA94184). CM Counter is a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar. SSR Banik is a Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Predoctoral Fellow.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hamad, N., Banik, S. & Counter, C. Mutational analysis defines a minimum level of telomerase activity required for tumourigenic growth of human cells. Oncogene 21, 7121–7125 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1205860
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1205860
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
Telomerase reverse transcriptase promotes epithelial–mesenchymal transition and stem cell-like traits in cancer cells
Oncogene (2013)
-
Expression of a constitutively active mutant of M-Ras in normal bone marrow is sufficient for induction of a malignant mastocytosis/mast cell leukemia, distinct from the histiocytosis/monocytic leukemia induced by expression of activated H-Ras
Oncogene (2005)
-
Dysregulated expression of the major telomerase components in leukaemic stem cells
Leukemia (2005)
-
Long-term controlled immortalization of a primate hepatic progenitor cell line after Simian virus 40 T-Antigen gene transfer
Oncogene (2005)
-
Adult human mesenchymal stem cell as a target for neoplastic transformation
Oncogene (2004)