4-Hydroxynonenal inhibits telomerase activity and hTERT expression in human leukemic cell lines.

4-Hydroxynonenal (HNE), produced during oxidative stress, has an antiproliferative/differentiative effect in several tumor cells. Recently, it has been observed that oxidative stress accelerates telomere loss. The length of telomeres depends on the telomerase activity, and the catalytic subunit of telomerase (hTERT) is strongly up-regulated in most human cancers and inhibited by differentiating agents.