Study Of Telomerase Activity And Its Subunits In Brain Gliomas

Objective This study is designed to investigate the role of telomerase and its subunits in the development of brain gliomas, to ascertain the co-relationship between telomerase activity and the expression of each subunit,and to explore the relationship between the expression of telomerase activity and clinical-pathological factors of brain gliomas. Methods Forty-eight brain gliomas and eight normal brain tissues were detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) for telomerase subunits,and telomerase repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) assay was used to detect telomerase activity. Results The expression of telomerase activity were raised with the upgrade of malignant degree of gliomas (P<0.05), It is found that hTR and TPlmRNA are widely expressed in each group of the tissues, while hTERTmRNA is mainly expressed in tumors with high degree of malignancy,which suggests that hTERTmRNA may play a critical role in the activation of telomerase. Statistics study showed that there is a strong correlation between the subunit hTERT and telomerase activity (p<0.001) , whereas hTR and TP1 expression showed no correlation with telomerase activation.There is an evident relationship between telomerase activity and the relapse of gliomas. No relationship was found between the expression of telomerase activity and other clinical factors. Conclusion Telomerase activation might contribute to the progression of ovarian carcinoma, and because hTERT expression parallels to telomerase...