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Shorter telomeres and high telomerase activity correlate with a highly aggressive phenotype in breast cancer cell lines

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Tumor Biology

Abstract

Maintenance of telomere length is one function of human telomerase that is crucial for the survival of cancer cells and cancer progression. Both telomeres and telomerase have been proposed as possible biomarkers of cancer risk and cancer invasiveness; however, their clinical relevance is still under discussion. In order to improve our understanding of the relationship between telomere length and telomerase activity with cancer invasiveness, we studied telomere length as well as telomerase levels, activity, and intracellular localization in breast cancer cell lines with diverse invasive phenotypes. We found an apparently paradoxical coincidence of short telomeres and enhanced telomerase activity in the most invasive breast cancer cell lines. We also observed that hTERT intracellular localization could be correlated with its level of activity. There was no association between human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) protein expression levels and invasiveness. We propose that simultaneous evaluation of these two biomarkers—telomere length and telomerase activity—could be useful for the assessment of the invasive capacity and aggressiveness of tumor cells from breast cancer patients.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Blanca Olivia Murillo Ortiz Ph. D. from IMSS Unidad Médica de Alta Especialidad #1 León, México, for her assistance in telomere length measuring assays; Enrique Perez Cárdenas Ph. D. from the Instituto Nacional de Cancerología, SSA, México for his support in invasion assays; and Carmen Mora Villalpando Ph. D. from IMSS Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, México for her advice in qPCR assays. Hugo A. Ceja-Rangel is grateful for CONACYT-México and IMSS scholarships and is grateful for the support, advice, and tutorship of Dr. Luis Benítez Bribiesca and Dr. Patricio Gariglio.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Genética y Biología Molecular, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional (CINVESTAV), Av. Instituto Politécnico Nacional 2508, 07360, Ciudad de México, Mexico

    Hugo A. Ceja-Rangel & Patricio Gariglio

  2. Unidad de Investigación Médica en Enfermedades Oncológicas, Hospital de Oncología, Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Av. Cuauhtémoc 330, 06725, Ciudad de México, Mexico

    Hugo A. Ceja-Rangel, Patricia Sánchez-Suárez, Emilio Castellanos-Juárez, Rubicelia Peñaroja-Flores & Luis Benítez-Bribiesca

  3. Unidad de Investigación Médica en Genética Humana, Hospital de Pediatría, Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Ciudad de México, Mexico

    Diego J. Arenas-Aranda

Authors
  1. Hugo A. Ceja-Rangel
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  2. Patricia Sánchez-Suárez
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  3. Emilio Castellanos-Juárez
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  4. Rubicelia Peñaroja-Flores
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  5. Diego J. Arenas-Aranda
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  6. Patricio Gariglio
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  7. Luis Benítez-Bribiesca
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Patricio Gariglio or Luis Benítez-Bribiesca.

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Funding

This study was supported with grants from the Coordination for Health Research, IMSS (FIS/IMSS/PROT/MD13/1253).

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Ceja-Rangel, H.A., Sánchez-Suárez, P., Castellanos-Juárez, E. et al. Shorter telomeres and high telomerase activity correlate with a highly aggressive phenotype in breast cancer cell lines. Tumor Biol. 37, 11917–11926 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-016-5045-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-016-5045-7

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