Telomerase activity of cultured human pancreatic carcinoma cell lines correlates with their potential for migration and invasion

BACKGROUND, Despite the recent clinical finding that high telomerase activi ty is an unfavorable prognostic marker for various human malignant tumors, there has been no experimental evidence supporting the link between telomer ase and tumor aggressiveness. In the current investigation, the authors exa mined the relation between telomerase activity and potential for biologic a ggressiveness in human pancreatic carcinoma cells. METHODS. Telomerase activity was measured in a poorly metastatic cell line HPC-3 and its highly metastatic variant HPC-3H4, as well as in many pancrea tic carcinoma cell lines. Aggressive behavior of cancer cells was assessed by in vitro migration and invasion assay. RESULTS. Compared with parental HPC-3, HPC-3H4 displayed higher telomerase activity, which was associated with a scattered phenotype and enhanced migr ation activity. Furthermore, the authors found that relative telomerase lev els correlated well with both motility (P = 0.0041) and invasion (P = 0.011 4) in 13 pancreatic carcinoma cell lines. There was, however, no significan t association between telomerase activity and cell proliferation. When telo merase activity of KP-1N cells was inhibited by transfection with antisense oligonucleotides, their motility and invasion rates were significantly dec reased. CONCLUSIONS. The authors concluded that the magnitude of telomerase activat ion may reflect the potential for aggressive behavior within cancer cells. These findings support the clinical utility of telomerase activity as a pro gnostic indicator. Their results also suggest a therapeutic potential for t elomerase inhibitors to prevent tumor invasion and possibly metastasis. (C) 2001 American Cancer Society.