APPLICATIONS OF TELOMERASE IN UROLOGIC ONCOLOGY

Vertebrates have special structures at the ends of their chromosomes, known as telomeres, which are composed of 5- to 15-kb pairs of a guani ne-rich hexameric repeat (TTAGGG)n. In normal somatic cells there is a progressive degradation of telomeres with aging. The cell can afford to lose only a finite number of these telomeres before significant seq uences of the parent DNA are lost, resulting in chromosomal instabilit y and cell death. However, germ-cell telomeres are maintained despite multiple rounds of replication. This suggests that they produce an enz yme that maintains their telomere length. This enzyme, a ribonucleopro tein, is called telomerase. In this review, we discuss the presence of telomerase activity in various human cancers and, in particular, in u rologic tumors. We describe the potential clinical utility of detectio n of the presence of telomerase activity in cells from voided urine sa mples of patients with bladder cancer.