Shay Jerry W, Wright Woodring E
Department of Cell Biology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, 5323 Harry Hines Boulevard, Dallas, Texas 75390-9039, USA.
Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2006 Jul;5(7):577-84. doi: 10.1038/nrd2081. Epub 2006 Jun 9.
It has been approximately a decade since telomerase was described as an almost universal marker for human cancer. Most human tumours not only express telomerase but also have very short telomeres, whereas telomerase activity is either reduced or absent in normal tissues, making the inhibition of telomerase an attractive target for cancer therapeutics. Here we review the current status of telomerase therapeutics and discuss future opportunities and challenges for telomerase research, including a possible relationship with cancer stem cells that could be a source of chemo-/radioresistance development in many advanced cancers.
自端粒酶被描述为人类癌症几乎通用的标志物以来，大约已经过去了十年。大多数人类肿瘤不仅表达端粒酶，而且端粒非常短，而端粒酶活性在正常组织中要么降低要么不存在，这使得抑制端粒酶成为癌症治疗的一个有吸引力的靶点。在这里，我们综述了端粒酶治疗的现状，并讨论了端粒酶研究未来的机遇和挑战，包括与癌症干细胞可能存在的关系，而癌症干细胞可能是许多晚期癌症产生化学/放射抗性的根源。
