ORIGINAL ARTICLE Short Telomeres and High Telomerase Activity in T
Leukemia (2007) 21, 2456–2462 & 2007 Nature Publishing Group All rights reserved 0887-6924/07 $30.00 www.nature.com/leu ORIGINAL ARTICLE Short telomeres and high telomerase activity in T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia ARo¨th1,JDu¨rig1, H Himmelreich2,3, S Bug4, R Siebert4,UDu¨hrsen1, PM Lansdorp5,6 and GM Baerlocher2,3 1Department of Hematology, University Hospital Essen, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; 2Department of Hematology, University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland; 3Department of Clinical Research, University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland; 4Institute of Human Genetics, Christian-Albrechts-University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, Germany; 5Terry Fox Laboratory, BC Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, Canada and 6Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada 4 5 To test the role of telomere biology in T-cell prolymphocytic repeats of the sequence T2AG3 and associated proteins folded leukemia (T-PLL), a rare aggressive disease characterized by into a telomere loop structure.6 Telomeres are required to the expansion of a T-cell clone derived from immuno-compe- tent post-thymic T-lymphocytes, we analyzed telomere length maintain chromosomal integrity and prevent end-to-end fusions and telomerase activity in subsets of peripheral blood leuko- of chromosomes. When telomeric ends become too short, DNA cytes from 11 newly diagnosed or relapsed patients with damage signals from telomeres can induce apoptosis or a state sporadic T-PLL. Telomere length values of the leukemic T cells of replicative senescence.7,8 Telomeres shorten with each round (mean7s.d.: 1.5370.65 kb) were all below the 1st percentile of of cell division as a result of failure to completely replicate the 30 telomere length values observed in T cells from healthy age- end of chromosomes9,10 as well as other causes.11 The average matched controls whereas telomere length of normal T- and telomere length in cells from most human tissues decreases with B cells fell between the 1st and 99th percentile of the normal 12,13 distribution.
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