[Expression and significance of telomerase reverse transcriptase and its regulators in non-small cell lung carcinoma]

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein complex, which is silent in normal human somatic cells but may be reactivated by a series of regulators, and cause tumorigenesis. As a critical factor of telomerase activity, much progression has been achieved in the study of regulation of human telomerase reverse transcriptase, but the detail mechanism is still not clear. This study was designed to investigate the relationship of expression of human telomerase reverse transcriptase mRNA (hTERT mRNA) and its regulators including c-myc, mutant p53, protein kinase C alpha (PKCalpha) with clinicopathological significance of expression of the four markers in non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC).

The expression of hTERT mRNA in 113 NSCLC specimens were detected by in situ hybridization, and the expression of c-myc, mutant p53, and PKCalpha in the same specimens were detected by immunohistochemistry.

The positive rates of 113 NSCLC samples for hTERT mRNA, c-myc, mutant p53, and PKCalpha were 80.5%, 68.1%, 61.9%, and 85.0%, respectively. The differences were statistically significant among the expression of hTERT mRNA, c-myc, and PKCalpha (P< 0.05 or P< 0.01), but was not significant between the expression of mutant p53 and hTERT mRNA, c-myc as well as PKCalpha. The expression of mutant p53 was associated with carcinoma cell differentiation (P< 0.05), and its positive rate gradually increased with the extend of differentiation of carcinoma cell. The expression of hTERT mRNA, c-myc, and PKCalpha were not associated with carcinoma cell differentiation. There was no relationship of expression of the four markers with histological types, TNM stages, and lymph node metastasis status.

C-myc and PKCalphawere associated with the expression of telomerase.