Assessment of telomerase as drug target in breast cancer

Telomerase is a specialized enzyme which maintains telomere length at the extreme end of the chromosome.Over 90% of all cases of cancer show high expression of telomerase while in normal cells, its expression isextremely low or undetectable. Detection of telomerase activity in a wide range of breast cancer makestelomerase an interesting target for diagnosis and therapy. In this review, we have aimed to describe telomeraseas a therapeutic and accurate diagnostic target in breast cancer. Telomerase performs many extracurricularactivities apart from maintaining telomere length; here, we have also tried to address its role in epithelialmesenchymal transition (EMT) of breast cancer progression.

Measles virus phosphoprotein inhibits apoptosis and enhances clonogenic and migratory properties in HeLa cells

Measles virus is the causative agent of measles, a major cause of child mortality in developing countries. Two majorproteins, coded by the viral genome, are nucleocapsid protein (N) and phosphoprotein (P). The N protein protects the viralgenomic RNA and forms ribonucleoprotein complex (RNP) together with P protein. MeV-P protein recruits the largeprotein (L), i.e. viral RNA-depended RNA polymerase (RdRp), to ensure viral replication in host cell. Apoptogenicproperties of N protein of Edmonston vaccine strain have been established in our lab previously. We investigated the role ofMeV-P protein of Edmonston vaccine strain as modulator of apoptosis in cervical cancer cell line (HeLa) and found thatMeV-P protein is anti-apoptotic and enhances cell proliferation. Measles virus is considered to be innately oncotropic virus.However, the anti-apoptotic property of MeV-P protein raises important concerns while adopting this virus as an anti-cancertherapeutic tool.