STUDIO DI ESPRESSIONE DEI GENI DELLA TELOMERASI IN LINEE DI COLTURE CELLULARI DI CARCINOMA PROSTATICO E MAMMARIO.

Starting date
February 1, 2004
Duration (months)
24
Departments
Department of Engineering for Innovation Medicine
Managers or local contacts
Valenti Maria Teresa

Bisphosphonates are important in the management of tumours with secondary bone involvement. Recent findings have suggested that these drugs also have an effect on primary tumour burden. Telomerase is a cellular ribonucleoprotein reverse transcriptase responsible for elongation of the telomere. Telomerase expression is increased in many cancers. We studied the direct effects of clodronate, alendronate, and pamidronate (from 10(-6) to 10(-4) M) on MCF-7 human breast cancer cell line. In particular, we investigated their effect on viability, proliferation, apoptosis, human telomerase reverse transcriptase expression (h-TERT) by RT-PCR and telomerase activity. Alendronate and pamidronate showed an inhibition of viability (-63 and -35%, respectively; p < 0.0001) and proliferation of cancer cells, while no effect was observed with clodronate. Amino-bisphosphonates induced a significant increase of apoptosis in MCF-7. In addition, they showed a significant decrease in telomerase expression and activity with respect to control and to clodronate.In addition, it is well known that gene expression of hTERT, the catalytic subunit of the telomerase, is elevated in prostatic cancer. In the prostate cancer cell lines we investigated the effects on hTERT gene expression of several bisphosphonates. We also evaluated whether the observed levels of expression were affected by the exposure to an analogue of the geranylgeranylpyrophosphate, the geranylgeraniol used to recover the mevalonate pathway. Our results showed that the amino-bisphosphonates down-regulate hTERT gene expression and that combined treatment with geranylgeraniol and zoledronate was able to revert only partially the effects on viability; on the contrary, hTERT gene down-regulation was not affected by the restoration of the mevalonate pathway. These results support the hypothesis that prostatic cancer cells are targeted by amino-bisphosphonates also through a different mechanism from the mevalonate pathway.

Project participants

Francesco Bertoldo
Associate Professor
Luca Giuseppe Dalle Carbonare
Full Professor
Luca Donatelli

Collaboratori esterni

Giuseppe Azzarello
ULSS Mirano (VE) Oncologia
Orazio Vinante
ULSS 13 Mirano Oncologia
Elena Balducci
ULSS 13 Oncologia
Research areas involved in the project
Oncology  (DM)
Oncology  (DNBM)
Publications
Title Authors Year
The effects on hTERT gene expression is an additional mechanism of amino-bisphosphonates in prostatic cancer cells Valenti, Maria Teresa; DALLE CARBONARE, Luca Giuseppe; Bertoldo, Francesco; Donatelli, Luca; LO CASCIO, Vincenzo 2008
Amino-bisphosphonates decrease hTERT gene expression in breast cancer in vitro. DALLE CARBONARE, Luca Giuseppe; Valenti, Maria Teresa; Bertoldo, Francesco; Fracalossi, Arianna; Balducci, E.; Azzarello, G.; Vinante, O.; LO CASCIO, Vincenzo 2007
BISPHOSPHONATES DECREASE TELOMERASE ACTIVITY AND HTERT EXPRESSION IN MCF-7 BREAST CANCER CELLS Dalle Carbonare L; Maria Teresa Valenti; Azzarello G; Balducci E; Crepaldi G; Realdi G; Vinante O; Giannini S; 2005

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