IMR Press / FBL / Volume 10 / Issue 3 / DOI: 10.2741/1707

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article
Whole-body interdiction of lengthening of telomeres: a proposal for cancer prevention
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1 Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EH, United Kingdom
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2005, 10(3), 2420–2429; https://doi.org/10.2741/1707
Published: 1 September 2005
Abstract

The intrinsic genetic instability of cancer cells makes age-related cancers more difficult to postpone or treat than any other age-related diseases. Any treatment that a cancer can resist by activating or inactivating specific genes is unlikely to succeed over the long term, because pre-existing cancer cells with the necessary gene expression pattern will withstand the therapy and proliferate. "Whole-body Interdiction of Lengthening of Telomeres" (WILT) is a proposal to pre-empt this problem by deleting from as many of our cells as possible the genes needed for telomere elongation. Cancers lacking these genes can never reach a life-threatening stage by altering gene expression, only by acquiring new genes, which is far more unlikely. Continuously-renewing tissues can be maintained by periodic reseeding with telomere elongation-incompetent stem cells that have had their telomeres lengthened in vitro with exogenous telomerase. Here, I describe why WILT might prove to be an exceptionally powerful anti-cancer modality.

Keywords
Tumor
Cancer
Telomeres
Telomerase
ALT
stem Cells
Chemoresistance
Gene Targeting
Immunosenescence
Review
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