Levels of telomerase catalytic subunit mRNA as a predictor of potential malignancy.

This study investigated the relationship between the levels of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) mRNA and that of telomerase activity in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). A significant correlation between hTERT mRNA expression and telomerase activity by transfecting the gene encoding hTERT into telomerase-negative human fibroblast cells has clearly been demonstrated. However, the relationship between levels of telomerase activity and that of hTERT mRNA has yet to be elucidated. In this study, the levels of hTERT mRNA were analyzed in 24 HCC patients by real-time PCR. And the intensity of telomerase activity was analyzed by fluorescence-based TRAP method. The difference of hTERT mRNA level was highly significant between tumor tissues and non-cancerous liver tissues. And there were significant correlations between the levels of hTERT mRNA and that of telomerase activity (r=0.751) in tumor tissues. We observed a strong correlation between levels of hTERT mRNA and that of telomerase activity in HCC. Our results suggest that the levels of hTERT mRNA would be useful in genetic diagnostic tests, instead of telomerase activity, to screen at-risk patients of HCC in human liver tissues.