The higher incidence of squamous cell carcinoma in renal transplant recipients is associated with increased telomere lengths

The different telomere lengths in basal and squamous cell carcinomas also differ between the nontransplant and renal transplant population

“…The precise mechanisms underlying the development of these lesions in solid organ transplant recipients are unknown but are thought to be promoted by the immunosuppressive therapies that such patients undergo. In addition, we have shown in our previous study that SCCRTR tumors have longer average telomere lengths than SCCN lesions and that this trend was evident also in Bowen disease (BD), the preinvasive counterpart of SCC [6]. These findings suggest that telomeres play a role in the higher incidence of SCC in the RTR population, and we wished to determine whether this was also the case for BCC lesions in this patient group.…”

“…HeLa, HaCaT, and HPV-G cell lines were used for the calibration of telomere length measurements in the archival tissue samples as described previously [6].…”

“…The intensity values obtained for these signals are linearly related to the telomere repeat lengths and were analyzed for 10 nuclei from each of the 35 samples of both the BCCN and BCCRTR groups (these results are summarized in Table 1). The NHS samples had been analyzed previously [6]. A, BCCN.…”

“…For the absolute telomere length determination for each skin sample, the cell lines were incorporated as an internal control for each hybridization experiment. A standard curve was then generated by plotting these ratios with the mean TRF values for these cell lines that had been determined by Southern blotting as described in our previous report [6].…”

“…In our present report, we have performed an extensive analysis of the telomere lengths and telomerase activity levels in 35 BCCN and 35 BCCRTR samples with a view to further assessing whether these differ from their SCC counterparts analyzed previously in our laboratory [6] and whether this may help explain the differing frequencies of these tumors in the N and RTR populations. Our results indeed show that the telomere length dynamics are quite different between these 2 NMSC tumor types, and we speculate that this may have implications for future telomerase-based therapies.…”