miRNA Regulation of Telomerase: A Novel Therapeutic Approach for Cancer

Twinkle Wahi, Sahil Dargan, Sumedha Jaitly and Vibha Rani*

Telomeres are repetitive sequence of nucleotides present at the end of the chromosomes. The main function of telomeres is to protect the ends of chromosomes from degradation and fusion. In normal cells, the telomere length decreases after each mitosis cycle, reaching a threshold limit after which the cell undergoes apoptosis. Telomerase is over expressed in approximately 85-90% of the tumors and thus it has become a lucrative target as an anti-cancer therapeutic. In recent past, many therapies targeting telomerase have been pursued, including immunotherapeutic approaches, telomerase targeted gene therapy, and most recently microRNAs telomerase vaccines, making them an attractive target for cancer therapeutics. MicoRNAs (miRNAs) are 20-24 base pair non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression at post-transcriptional level. miRNAs are important regulators of cancer and can be used to target telomerase, thus acting as a therapeutic for cancer.In this review, we summarize the possibility of broad-spectrum immunotherapy or even immunoprevention and discuss therapeutic approaches based on small molecules to inhibit telomerase activity. Also focusing on microRNA and how it controls the expression of telomerase to prevent tumor development.

Keywords: Telomere; Telomerase; microRNA; Cancer; Therapeutics

Published on: Dec 30, 2016 Pages: 13-18

Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/ojpg.000003
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