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Telomere maintenance and cancer ? look, no telomerase

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 2, pages 879–884 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Activation of a telomere maintenance mechanism seems to be indispensable for the immortalization of human cells. Most cancers and cancer cell lines maintain their telomeres via telomerase. In some cancers, however, telomeres are maintained in the absence of telomerase activity by one or more mechanisms that are known as alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT). Successful telomere-targeted anticancer therapy might therefore require a combination of telomerase and ALT inhibitors, emphasizing the importance of understanding the molecular details of telomere maintenance mechanisms in immortal cells and their repression in normal cells.

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Figure 1: Telomeric DNA and protein assembly.
Figure 2: Senescence and immortalization.
Figure 3: Telomere-length phenotype of ALT cells.
Figure 4: Telomerase-null Saccharomyces cerevisiae type I and type II survivors.
Figure 5: Recombination-mediated telomere lengthening in ALT cells.
Figure 6: ALT-associated PML bodies.

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Acknowledgements

Research in the authors' laboratory was supported by the Carcinogenesis Fellowship of the Cancer Council New South Wales and project grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

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  1. the Cancer Research Unit, Children's Medical Research Institute, 214 Hawkesbury Road, Westmead, Sydney, 2145, New South Wales, Australia

    Axel A. Neumann & Roger R. Reddel

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  1. Axel A. Neumann
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Correspondence to Roger R. Reddel.

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DATABASES

GenBank

SV40 large T antigen

LocusLink

RAS

RB

Terc

TERC

TERT

TP53

OMIM

Bloom syndrome

dyskeratosis congenita

Rothmund?Thomson syndrome

Werner syndrome

<i>Saccharomyces</i> Genome Database

MSC1

RAD50

RAD51

RAD52

RAD54

RAD57

RAD59

SGS1

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Neumann, A., Reddel, R. Telomere maintenance and cancer ? look, no telomerase. Nat Rev Cancer 2, 879–884 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc929

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