Advances in optical assays for detecting telomerase activity

Abstract

Telomerase uses its RNA as template and its protein unit as reverse transcriptase to synthesize TTAGGG repeats at the ends of the eukaryotic chromosome to maintain the lengths of telomeres. Telomerase activity up-regulates in about 85% of human tumors compared with somatic cells, which indicates that telomerase is a tumor biomarker. Reliable assay of telomerase activity is thus essential in diagnosis and management of malignant tumors. In this review, recent developed optical assays are summarized based on the readout signal, including chemiluminescence assay, colorimetric assay, and fluorescence assay.

Aggregation-induced emission luminogens reveal cell cycle-dependent telomerase activity in cancer cells

“…Current detecting techniques (the golden standard) for TERT mRNA are mainly based on Real-time Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR) [ 15 , 16 ]. The standard TRAP assay (telomeric repeat amplification protocol) [ 3 , 17 , 18 ], optical detection [ 19 , 20 ], colorimetric assays [ 21 ], biosensor chip [ 22 ] and electrochemical strategies [ 23 ] have been developed for telomerase activity detection. Fluorescence methods have the advantage of simplicity, sensitivity and rapidity [ 24–26 ], thus they were widely used in cell-lysate-dependent detecting assays [ 27 , 28 ] and intracellular imaging [ 29–31 ].…”

Possibility of inducing tumor cell senescence during therapy (Review)

“…In particular, the telomerase activity in certain tumors is very low, and thus the inhibition of telomerase activity may not be effective for these tumors. Conversely, some normal cells possess telomerase activity (141,142). In such cases, the inhibition of telomerase activity may cause adverse effects and undesirable results.…”

Hollow Spherical Covalent Organic Frameworks from Nonplanar or Planar Monomers for the Fluorescence Detection of Telomere DNA: Role of the 2-(2-Azidoethoxy)ethoxy Group

“…Because of its biological value, monitoring telomere DNA is an important tool in pathology and clinical diagnosis. To acquire telomere DNA sequence fragments in detectable amounts, traditional telomere DNA analysis depends mainly on PCR and label-based detection assays. − The PCR assay is complicated and expensive. On the contrary, the label-based detection assays of telomere DNA depend on the hybridization of the target telomere sequence with its functionalized complementary DNA.…”

“…On the contrary, the label-based detection assays of telomere DNA depend on the hybridization of the target telomere sequence with its functionalized complementary DNA. Such complementary DNA is usually labeled with 32 P or biotin. − These label-based detection assays have several disadvantages, including high cost and time consumption. As a result, numerous inventive DNA detection assays have been developed, including magnetic bead, fluorescence, nylon membrane, and sandwich assay. − Among them, fluorescence assays are dominant owing to their obvious advantages of simple implementation and easy processing.…”