Presence of telomerase activity in different musculoskeletal tumor histotypes and correlation with aggressiveness

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein enzyme that maintains the protective stru ctures at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes, called telomeres, Telomerase activity was observed and correlated with aggressiveness in different neopl asms such as breast, prostate, blood and brain cancers, among others. To in vestigate whether telomerase activity is an index of aggressiveness in bone and soft tissue lesions of the extremities, 66 biopsy samples from our tis sue bank were studied. These samples included 43 high-grade sarcomas, 9 agg ressive benign tumors and 14 totally benign lesions, The samples were colle cted from patients homogeneously treated at the Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institu te with a follow-up ranging from 4 to 11 years (median, 7 years). A non-rad ioactive polymerase chain reaction-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used for the study. All tumors investigated were positive for telomeras e activity. Among benign lesions, only 2 aneurysmal bone cysts showed highe r telomerase activity than the cut-off point, whereas all the other benign lesions had lower activity. Our results indicate that high levels of telome rase activity in bone and soft tissue lesions correlate with more aggressiv e clinical behavior in patients treated with surgery alone. An interesting inverse correlation between telomerase activity and occurrence of pulmonary metastasis was detected in osteosarcoma patients treated with chemotherapy , A parallel increase of telomerase activity and malignancy was observed in the adipose and cartilagineous tissue lesions, Our data suggest that telom erase activity could be considered a marker of tumor aggressiveness for bon e and soft tissue lesions, The results obtained in osteosarcoma sampler sug gest that low levels of telomerase activity may be predictive of the progno sis and should influence the therapeutic protocol, (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc .