Three Minute Thesis
An attractive therapeutic target for cancer : Telomerase and Epigenetic approaches
Telomeres protect human chromosome ends from degradation . Telomerase is responsible for telomere maintenance and elongation where the telomerase reverse transcriptase gene ( hTERT ) encodes the rate-limiting catalytic subunit . In cancer , the most straightforward therapeutic strategy seeks to inhibit the enzymatic activity of telomerase , thus abolishing its telomere-lengthening function , leaving telomeres to shorten with subsequent cell divisions , ultimately resulting in senescence or apoptosis . Also , promoter methylation has been suggested to be associated with epigenetic control of telomerase regulation which holds significant potential for therapy . In our project we sought to understand if promoter methylation impacted on telomerase regulation in differentiated stem cells and cancer . Our experiment results showed that methylation analysis from pluripotent , cancer and somatic cells demonstrated a distinct methylation signature that distinguished somatic and pluripotent stem cells from cancer cells . This distinct methylation pattern might provide a potential novel therapeutic strategy to inhibit TERT expression without affecting healthy tissue ..
Postgraduate Conference 2020 Page 19