EPIGENETIC ACTIVATION: A single base-pair mutation (lower allele) leads to epigenetic changes that promote expression of a telomerase gene.COURTESY OF JOSH STERN
The paper J.L. Stern et al., “Mutation of the TERT promoter, switch to active chromatin, and monoallelic TERT expression in multiple cancers,” Genes Dev, doi:10.1101/gad.269498, 2015. The foundation Chromosome ends are slightly shortened with each DNA replication. Terminal repetitive sequences called telomeres buffer coding DNA from this fate. In stem cells, telomerase extends the telomeres so that cell division can continue, perhaps indefinitely. In somatic cells, telomerase is inactive in part because the gene encoding telomerase’s catalytic subunit, telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), is epigenetically silenced. In most cancers, however, telomerase is again turned on and aids proliferation. The mutations In 2013, researchers found two mutations in the TERT promoter that occur frequently in cancer cell lines and are tied with TERT expression. Regulation To probe ...
