Sinusoidal swinging dynamics of the telomere repair and cell growth activation functions of telomerase in rat liver cancer cells

Telomerase is a multimolecular complex of reverse transcriptase, RNA template, and regulatory proteins. It has two known functions: catalysis of the addition of vertical bar TTAGGG vertical bar repeats to telomeric DNA and the activation of various genes controlling cell proliferation. The possible coordination of these two functions is a key issue in understanding the growth of cancer cells. We report long-term changes to this complex system, as shown by specific data analysis methods. We show that the dynamics of the two functions of telomerase are tightly linked, with a change in predominant function every 13-14 weeks. The conservative behavior of this dynamic system probably accounts for the persistent proliferation of cancer cells. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies.