Correlation between chemosensitivity to anticancer drugs and telomerase reverse transcriptase mRNA expression in gastric cancer

Abstract

BackgroundThe determination of sensitive chemotherapy drugs for gastric cancer (GC) is one of the greatest challenges of adjuvant therapy. Here we evaluated the chemosensitivity of GC to anticancer drugs and the telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) mRNA expression, and investigated the relationship of them.MethodsThe GC cells which were collected from 68 patients with primary GC were primary cultured. The chemosensitivity of GC cells to anticancer drugs was evaluated successfully using the MTT assay for 60 cases of GC cells, and the hTERT mRNA expression was examined in 60 cases of GC tissues and corresponding normal gastric mucosa and 6 cases of chronic superficial gastritis mucosa by in situ hybridization.ResultsTaxol, Cisplatin and 5-Fluorouracil were in general more effective than Adriamycin and Mitomycin for GC cells, and the chemosensitivity to anticancer drugs was associated with tumor histological types and a worse tumor grade. Compared to normal gastric mucosa tissues, hTERT mRNA expression was significantly increased in GC (P<0.05), which was related with a worse differentiation and drug-resistance to 5-Fluorouracil or Adriamycin in GC.ConclusionsThese data demonstrate for the first time that examinations of hTERT mRNA expression as an important factor could be used to select the chemotherapeutic drugs for GC patients.Virtual slidesThe virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/1793217009875483

Telomerase reverse transcriptase suppression inhibits cell proliferation and promotes cell apoptosis in hepatocellular cancer

“…The high telomerase TERT expression level was also reported to be a predictor of disease progression and poor outcomes of lung cancer . Another previous study also proved that high‐expressed hTERT mRNA was a main factor of worse tumor differentiation and Adriamycin or 5‐Fluorouracil drug‐resistance in gastric cancer . Recently, there have been several studies focused on the role of TERT in HCC.…”

hTERT promotes the invasion of gastric cancer cells by enhancing FOXO3a ubiquitination and subsequent ITGB1 upregulation

“…High hTERT expression is associated with advanced disease and unfavourable prognoses in different types of malignancies 4. Furthermore, the examination of hTERT expression might facilitate the selection of chemotherapeutic drugs for the treatment of patients with gastric cancer 5. Once telomerase activity or hTERT expression is inhibited, cancer cells undergo progressive telomere shortening, thereby triggering cellular senescence or apoptosis and the eventual loss of tumourigenic potential 2.…”

PITX1 is a novel predictor of the response to chemotherapy in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

“…Previously, Ohira et al (30) reported that the mRNA expression level of PITX1 is directly suppressed by microRNA-19b, followed by the upregulation of TERT expression in melanoma cells (30). In addition, certain previous reports have shown that upregulated telomerase activation, as well as the mRNA expression of TERT, correlates with poor chemosensitivity (31)(32)(33). These previous reports appear to support the hypothesis that attenuating the expression of PITX1 by miR-19b may be associated with malignancy and may assist with chemoresistance via telomerase activation in HNSCC cells.…”