Inhibition of telomerase activity correlates with a decrease in the RNA component of telomerase during differentiation

Tohru Kobayashi, Katharina Clodi, Yu Yang, Sanbao Ruan, Hiroshi Shiku, Michael Andreeff, Jerry W. Shay, Wei Zhang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

In most normal somatic cells the telomeres of human chromosomes shorten with each cell division because of low expression or lack of telomerase activity. Telomerase, a ribonucleoprotein that synthesizes telomeric DNA onto chromosomal ends, is reactivated or upregulated in tumor cells and maintains the stability of telomere length. We previously showed that treatment of HL60 leukemia cells with differentiation-inducing agents resulted in inhibition of telomerase activity. In the present study, we found that the decrease in telomerase activity did not temporally correlate with the expression of a differentiation marker, CD11b, on the cell surface. Mixing of protein extracts from telomerase-negative differentiated HL60 cells with those from parental HL60 cells did not result in inhibition of telomerase activity, suggesting that a diffusible cellular telomerase inhibitor was not produced in the differentiated cells. However, a decrease in telomerase activity correlated with a selective decrease of telomerase RNA expression, a decrease in the levels of total cellular RNA, and an increase in cells at G0 phase.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)13-17
Number of pages5
JournalInternational journal of oncology
Volume11
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1997

Keywords

  • CD11b
  • Differentiation
  • HL60 cells
  • Telomerase RNA component
  • Telomerase activity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Oncology
  • Cancer Research

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