Progression and study of the catalytic subunit of human telomerase(hTERT) in tumor therapy / 中国癌症杂志

ABSTRACT

The de novo transcription of hTERT gene represents a rate-limiting step in the activation of human telomerase.The expression of hTERT is strictly regulated with several oncogene products and tumor suppressor gene products in normal cells.The construction of a reverse-transcriptional virus vector that contains the promoter of hTERT without losing its specificity can dramatically augment the expressions of anticancer genes in telomerase-positive cancer cells,which prompts the use of an hTERT promoter for anticancer gene therapies.Firstly,we briefly introduce the structure and regulation of hTERT gene,and then we also review the present knowledge of its biological function in cancer progression.