Levels of telomerase catalytic subunit mRNA as a predictor of potential malignancy

This study investigated the relationship between the levels of human telome rase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) mRNA and that of telomerase activity in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). A significant correlation between hTERT mRN A expression and telomerase activity by transfecting the gene encoding hTER T into telomerase-negative human fibroblast cells has clearly been demonstr ated. However, the relationship between levels of telomerase activity and t hat of hTERT mRNA has yet to be elucidated. In this study, the levels of hT ERT mRNA were analyzed in 24 HCC patients by real-time PCR. And the intensi ty of telomerase activity was analyzed by fluorescence-based TRAP method. T he difference of hTERT mRNA level was highly significant between tumor tiss ues and non-cancerous liver tissues. And there were significant correlation s between the levels of hTERT mRNA and that of telomerase activity (r=0.751 ) in tumor tissues. We observed a strong correlation between levels of hTER T mRNA and that df telomerase activity in HCC. Our results suggest that the levels of hTERT mRNA would be useful in genetic diagnostic tests, instead of telomerase activity, to screen at-risk patients of HCC in human liver ti ssues.