BACKGROUND Mutations in the TERT promoter, ALK rearrangement, and the BRAF V600E mutation are associated with aggressive clinicopathologic features in thyroid cancers. However, little is known about the impact of TERT promoter mutations and ALK rearrangement in thyroid cancer patients with a high prevalence of BRAF mutations. METHODS We performed Sanger sequencing to detect BRAF V600E and TER...

Telomerase activity is downregulated in somatic cells but is upregulated during the activation of cells of the immune system. The mechanism of this reactivation is not well understood. In this study, we demonstrated that interferon regulatory factor 4 (IRF-4) and, to a lesser extent, IRF-8 induce telomerase activity. The suppression of IRF-4 results in decreased levels of TERT (telomerase rever...

Kornblum and Delamare showed the first decomposition of dialkyl peroxides by base-catalyzed rearrangement. They reported that 1-[1-(tert -butylperoxy)ethyl] benzene 1 gives acetophenone and tert-butanol by treatment with bases such as KOH, NaOEt, and piperidine. Milas and Surgenor reported previously the stability of 2-(tert -butylperoxy)-2-methylpropane against strong bases. Kornblum and Delam...

Activating mutations in the TERT promoter were recently identified in up to 71% of cutaneous melanoma. Subsequent studies found TERT promoter mutations in a wide array of other major human cancers. TERT promoter mutations lead to increased expression of telomerase, which maintains telomere length and genomic stability, thereby allowing cancer cells to continuously divide, avoiding senescence or...

DNA methyltransferase inhibitors (DNMTIs) such as 5-azacytidine (5-AZA) have been used for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and other malignancies. Although inhibiting global/gene-specific DNA methylation is widely accepted as a key mechanism behind DNMTI anti-tumor activity, other mechanisms are likely involved in DNMTI's action. Because telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) plays k...

Telomerase is a multisubunit ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex that adds telomere repeats to the ends of chromosomes. Three essential telomerase components have been identified thus far: the telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), the telomerase RNA component (TERC), and the TERC-binding protein dyskerin. Few other proteins are known to be required for human telomerase function, limiting our und...

Metal b-tetrakis(tert-butyl)phthalocyanines are the most commonly used phthalocyanines due to their high solubility, stability, and accessibility. They are commonly used as a mixture of four regioisomers, which arise due to the tert-butyl substituent on the b-position, and to the best of our knowledge, their regioselective synthesis has yet to be reported. Herein, the C4hselective synthesis of ...

The unique oncogene duet of coexisting BRAF V600E and TERT promoter mutations are widely found to be a robust genetic background promoting human cancer aggressiveness, but the mechanism is unclear. Here, we demonstrate that the BRAF V600E/MAP kinase pathway phosphorylates and activates FOS, which in turn acts as a transcription factor to bind and activate the GABPB promoter, increasing GABPB ex...

Genome wide association studies (GWAS) have shown that SNPs in non-coding regions are associated with inherited susceptibility to cancer. The effect of one single SNP, however, is weak. To identify potential co-factors of SNPs, we investigated the underlying mechanism by which SNPs affect lung cancer susceptibility. We found that rs2853677 is located within the Snail1 binding site in a TERT enh...

The bis(tert-butylimido)-molybdenum(VI) framework has previously been used for the successful atomic layer deposition (ALD) and chemical vapor of many molybdenum-containing thin films. Here, we have prepared fully characterized a new thermally robust bis(tert-butylimido)molybdenum(VI) complex, bis(tert-butylimido)-bis(N-2-(tert-butyliminomethyl)pyrrolato)-molybdenum(VI), (tBuN)2Mo(PyrIm)2 (1), ...