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Telomeres and telomerase in paediatric patients with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL)

Leukemia volume 19, pages 296–298 (2005)Cite this article

TO THE EDITOR

Telomeres the repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes consist of 5–15 kb pairs of multiple copies of TTAGGG sequences. Owing to the so-called ‘end replication problem’, telomeres shorten with each cell division by 50–200 bp.1 At a critical telomere length, cells enter senescence or apoptosis. Cells can get immortal by stabilizing the length of their telomeres by activation of the multisubunit enzyme telomerase. In about 85% of all human tumours telomerase activity (TA) has been detected, whereas TA is absent in most normal cells.2 The presence of TA is limited by the expression of the catalytic subunit of telomerase hTERT (human telomerase reverse transcriptase).1 It has been shown that TA is a prognostic marker in some solid tumours as well as in haematologic neoplasias.2 In contrast to solid tumours, few studies exist in haematologic neoplasias regarding TA and telomere length.

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Figure 1

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Robert Bosch Foundation, Stuttgart, Germany, the Reinhold Beitlich Foundation, Tübingen, Germany, and in part by a EU Grant (MOL CANCER MED to PB). We thank Dagmar Weller, Katja Simon-Klingenstein and Hermann Stammer for their excellent technical assistance.

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Author notes

  1. E Kleideiter and U Bangerter: These two authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dr Margarete Fischer-Bosch Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Stuttgart, Germany

    E Kleideiter, M Schwab & U Klotz

  2. University Children's Hospital, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

    U Bangerter & J Greil

  3. Division of Genetics of Skin Carcinogenesis, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany

    P Boukamp

  4. Department of Paediatric Haematology/Oncology, Olga Hospital, Stuttgart, Germany

    E Koscielniak

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  1. E Kleideiter
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Correspondence to J Greil.

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Kleideiter, E., Bangerter, U., Schwab, M. et al. Telomeres and telomerase in paediatric patients with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL). Leukemia 19, 296–298 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2403596

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2403596

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