Telomerase activation and incidence of HPV in human gastrointestinal tumors in North Indian population

The present study was initiated with the objective of finding out the role of possible factors in the etiology of gastrointestinal tract cancers. HPV- DNA was detected in 62.5% (25/40) of the patients by PCR. Telomerase activi ty as shown by TRAP-ELISA assay was detected in 82.5% (33/40) of the tumor samples and absent in 85.7% (30/35) of the normal samples taken from the sa me patients. As many as 53.6% (15/28) of the invasive cases were positive b oth for telomerase activity and for HPV, while 39.3% (11/28) of them, altho ugh indicating telomerase expression, showed no signal for HPV. This sugges ts that activation of telomerase could be by a pathway independent of HPV a ctivation, although both parameters could act as diagnostic and prognostic markers for gastrointestinal tract cancers.