Abstract

The Potential Clinical Implications of Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase in the Detection and Diagnosis of Bladder Cancer

Yitian Wang, Bo Wang, Meng Zhang, Zhiming Cai and Song Wu

Telomerase and the control of telomere length are intimately linked to the process of tumorigenesis in humans and mutations in the promoter regions of its catalytic subunit, TERT, can affect telomerase activity and telomere, creating severe clinical phenotypes. In this paper, we briefly review the potential mechanisms under which TERT play in tumorigenesis and focus mainly on TERT’s potential as a biomarker for the detection and diagnosis of bladder cancer.