Cloning of rat telomerase catalytic subunit functional domains, reconstitution of telomerase activity and enzymatic profile of pig and chicken tissues.

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein polymerase which adds TTAGGG repeats to telomeric ends. Recent studies reported the reverse transcription enzyme activity mostly from the catalytic subunit (TERT) of the enzyme complex. Both human telomerase catalytic subunit (hTERT) and mouse telomerase catalytic subunit (mTERT) had been previously cloned but not rat telomerase catalytic subunit rTERT.

Antisense telomerase induced cell growth inhibition, cell cycle arrest and telomerase activity down-regulation in gastric and colon cancer cells.

Background: Antisense telomerase RNA (anti-hTR) coupled with 2',5'-linked tetraadenylate (2-5A) shows an inhibitory effect on cell growth and induces apoptosis in certain kinds of cancer. This experiment examined the anti-hTR effect on gastric and colorectal cancer cells.

Materials And Methods: Gastric cancer cells CRL-5822, CRL-5971 and colorectal cancer cells HTB-38, CCL-247 were treated with repeated doses of anti-hTR.