Glandular dysplasia in Barrett's esophagus may regress spontaneously but can also progress to cancer. The human telomerase RNA template and the human telomerase reverse transcriptase enzyme which do not, of themselves, correlate strongly with telomerase activity, are too often overexpressed in Barrett's dysplasia to predict individual cancer risk. This study relates telomerase activity, mucosal...

BACKGROUND There is accumulating evidence from the epidemiological field of telomere biology that telomere length plays an important role in the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease. The RNA-dependent DNA polymerase, telomerase, is essential in regulating telomere length by acting as a reverse transcriptase. However, the relationship between telomerase activity and telomere length in cardi...

background human telomerase reverse transcriptase (htert) has become an ideal target for development of anticancer therapy. small interfering rnas (sirnas) are very powerful reagents for gene silencing and show promise for cancer gene therapy. however, only a small number of sirnas have been demonstrated to be effective. for gene therapy targeting htert, it is essential to develop a robust syst...

A monoclonal antibody was developed that recognizes an antigen with an asymmetric distribution in the chick retina. Immunohistochemistry showed that this antigen, temporal retinal axon protein (TRAP), was present on most if not all axons that arose from the temporal side of the retina. Very few of the axons from the nasal side of the retina were positive for TRAP. The nasal-temporal difference ...

In Bacillus subtilis, expression of the tryptophan biosynthetic genes is regulated in response to tryptophan by an RNA-binding protein called TRAP (trp RNA-binding attenuation protein). TRAP has been shown to contain 11 identical subunits arranged in a symmetrical ring. Kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of the interaction between tryptophan-activated TRAP and trp leader RNA were studied. Res...

The sensitive telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) permits telomerase detection in mammalian cell and tissue extracts with very low telomerase activity levels. Unfortunately, conventional TRAP assays require complex post-amplification procedures, such as polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and densitometry, to measure telomerase products. Therefore, a real-time quantitative TRAP assay ...