Abstracts
1999 Digestive Disease Week

# 2115 TELOMERASE REVERSE TRANSCRIPTASE ACTIVATION IN BARRETT'S ESOPHAGUS AND BARRETT'S ADENOCARCINOMAS
Reginald V Lord, Peter Tsai, Kathy D Danenberg, Jeffrey H Peters, T R DeMeester, Cedric G Bremner, Kristin Skinner, Milton T Kiyabu, Joerg Theisen, Peter V Danenberg, Univ of Southern CA, Los Angeles, CA

Background: Telomerase activation is associated with cellular immortality and carcinogenesis, and increased telomerase expression has been used as a marker for malignancy.
Methods: Expression of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTRT) at mRNA level, relative to b-actin, was measured by quantitative fluorogenic dye RT-PCR method in specimens of Barrett's adenocarcinoma (n=14), dysplastic Barrett's epithelium (n=10), Barrett's intestinal metaplasia (n=16), and matched normal esophagus samples.
Results: hTRT expression was statistically significantly increased in metaplastic (p<0.0001), dysplastic (p<0.005), adenocarcinoma (p<0.0001) specimens compared with normal tissues. Very high expression levels were found only in cancer or high grade dysplasia (carcinoma in situ) specimens.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that hTRT activation is likely to be an important event in the development and progression of Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma. Expression levels of these genes may be useful markers for the detection of occult adenocarcinoma in the esophagus. Activation of telomerase, which is believed to have an anti-apoptotic function, may contribute to the low frequency of apoptosis observed in this disease.

Copyright 1996 - 1999, SSAT, Inc.