Nonradioactive and Radioactive Telomerase Assays for Detecting Diminished Telomerase Activity in Cancer Cells after Treatment with Retinoid.

Abstract

Detection of any decrease in telomerase activity in cancer cells and tumor tissues is an important part in assessing overall therapeutic outcomes of a treatment agent in the laboratory and clinical settings. Almost 85% of cancers have activation of telomerase activity that promotes cell proliferation and discourages differentiation to sustain growth of the cancers. Retinoids are highly regarded as the anti-proliferation and pro-differentiation agents that cause down regulation of telomerase activity in the cancer cells. Two (nonradioactive and radioactive) telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) assays are optimized and fully described for detection of the diminished or abolished telomerase activity in a very low amount of protein extracts from cancer cells after treatment with a natural retinoid or a synthetic retinoid. These highly optimized and improved nonradioactive and radioactive TRAP assays can also be used for determining the presence or absence of telomerase activity in a small amount of any tumor tissue. The results from these TRAP assays can also help decide appropriate therapeutic options for the cancers with or without telomerase activity.

• Authors: Swapan K Ray
• Journal: Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) (Methods Mol Biol) Vol. 2019 Pg. 257-273 ( 2019) ISSN: 1940-6029 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 31359402 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural)

Chemical References

• Retinoids
• Telomerase

Topics

• Cells, Cultured
• Enzyme Activation (drug effects)
• Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic (drug effects)
• HEK293 Cells
• HL-60 Cells
• Humans
• Neoplasms (drug therapy, enzymology)
• Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques (methods)
• Radioactivity
• Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid
• Retinoids (pharmacology)
• Sample Size
• Telomerase (drug effects, metabolism)
• Telomere (genetics)