The tale of the telomere: implications for prevention and treatment of skin cancers.

Work in many laboratories over the past decade has established a central role for the telomere in maintaining genomic integrity. Available data may be interpreted to indicate that telomere disruption, whether due to acute DNA damage or progressive telomere shortening, is the initial event that triggers multiple DNA damage responses. The specific initiating event is likely exposure of the otherwise concealed single-stranded 3' overhang, tandem repeats of TTAGGG, a signal that can be provided to cells in the absence of DNA damage by exogenously provided T-oligos. The ability of T-oligo treatment to trigger SOS-like responses and/or to cause selective apoptosis of already malignantly transformed cells may provide an important new means of cancer prevention and treatment.