IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v12y2021i1d10.1038_s41467-020-20474-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Integrated analysis of telomerase enzymatic activity unravels an association with cancer stemness and proliferation

Author

Listed:
  • Nighat Noureen

    (UT Health San Antonio
    UT Health San Antonio)

  • Shaofang Wu

    (MD Anderson Cancer Center)

  • Yingli Lv

    (UT Health San Antonio)

  • Juechen Yang

    (UT Health San Antonio)

  • W. K. Alfred Yung

    (MD Anderson Cancer Center)

  • Jonathan Gelfond

    (UT Health San Antonio)

  • Xiaojing Wang

    (UT Health San Antonio
    UT Health San Antonio)

  • Dimpy Koul

    (MD Anderson Cancer Center)

  • Andrew Ludlow

    (University of Michigan)

  • Siyuan Zheng

    (UT Health San Antonio
    UT Health San Antonio)

Abstract

Active telomerase is essential for stem cells and most cancers to maintain telomeres. The enzymatic activity of telomerase is related but not equivalent to the expression of TERT, the catalytic subunit of the complex. Here we show that telomerase enzymatic activity can be robustly estimated from the expression of a 13-gene signature. We demonstrate the validity of the expression-based approach, named EXTEND, using cell lines, cancer samples, and non-neoplastic samples. When applied to over 9,000 tumors and single cells, we find a strong correlation between telomerase activity and cancer stemness. This correlation is largely driven by a small population of proliferating cancer cells that exhibits both high telomerase activity and cancer stemness. This study establishes a computational framework for quantifying telomerase enzymatic activity and provides new insights into the relationships among telomerase, cancer proliferation, and stemness.

Suggested Citation

  • Nighat Noureen & Shaofang Wu & Yingli Lv & Juechen Yang & W. K. Alfred Yung & Jonathan Gelfond & Xiaojing Wang & Dimpy Koul & Andrew Ludlow & Siyuan Zheng, 2021. "Integrated analysis of telomerase enzymatic activity unravels an association with cancer stemness and proliferation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-20474-9
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20474-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20474-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-020-20474-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Funan He & Abhik M. Bandyopadhyay & Laura J. Klesse & Anna Rogojina & Sang H. Chun & Erin Butler & Taylor Hartshorne & Trevor Holland & Dawn Garcia & Korri Weldon & Luz-Nereida Perez Prado & Anne-Mari, 2023. "Genomic profiling of subcutaneous patient-derived xenografts reveals immune constraints on tumor evolution in childhood solid cancer," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-16, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-20474-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.