Silvia Bacchetti

TL;DR: All major types of cancer have been screened and the presence of telomerase activity has been detected in the vast majority of cases, and a summary, in table form, of the current data is provided.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors measured telomere length, telomerase activity and chromosome rearrangements in human cells before and after transformation with SV40 or Ad5 and found that telomeres shortened by approximately 65 bp/generation during the lifespan of the cultures.

TL;DR: The cloning of a human gene, hEST2, that shares significant sequence similarity with the telomerase catalytic subunit genes of lower eukaryotes is reported, suggesting that the induction of hEST 2 mRNA expression is required for the telomersase activation that occurs during cellular immortalization and tumor progression.

TL;DR: It is suggested that the presence of lengthened or stabilized telomeres is necessary for immortalization, and that this may be achieved either by the reactivation of telomerase or by a novel and as yet unidentified mechanism.

TL;DR: It is reported that extremely short telomeres are maintained in metastatic cells of epithelial ovarian carcinoma and that tumor cells, but not isogenic nonmalignant cells, express telomerase, suggesting that progression of malignancy is ultimately dependent upon activation of telomersase and that telomerases inhibitors may be effective antitumor drugs.