Effect Of Homoharringtonine On Apoptosis-related Genes And Telomere-telomerase In Leukemic Cells

Homoharringtonine (HHT) is a cephalotaxine ester derived from an evergreen tree found widely throughout southern China, which has anticancer activity effectively to acute non-lymphocytic leukemia (ANLL) . It was documented that HHT could induce apoptosis of acute non-lymphocytic leukemia cells. Apoptosis is a kind of cell death, different from necrosis, which modulated by many apoptosis-related genes. The telomere and telomerase play an important role in the malignant progress of tumor cells and the maintenance of immortal cell lines.The process of HHT-induced apoptosis of leukemic cells, might be associated with changes of telomerase activity and telomere length and the expression of apoptosis-related genes such as bcl-2 bax and c-myc. By now, the detailed research papers about the mechanisms of HHT-induced apoptosis of leukemic cells have not been found in the literatures. In this study, we tried to elucidate the mechanisms of HHT-induced apoptosis of leukemic cells in order to design a new anticancer strategy-inhibiting the telomerase activity and...