ArticleCell reports2012
Long telomeres bypass the requirement for telomere maintenance in human tumorigenesis.
Article in Cell reports, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Highly Sensitive and Robust Detection of Human Telomerase Based on Strand-Displacement Cascade Amplification.ACS measurement science au · 2026Article
- Relative leukocyte telomere length and the risk of lung cancer progression in individuals with pulmonary nodules.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- The complex interplay between aging and cancer.Nature aging · 2025Review
- Telomerase-Mediated Anti-Ageing Interventions.Sub-cellular biochemistry · 2024Review
- Tieing together loose ends: telomere instability in cancer and aging.Molecular oncology · 2022Review
- POT1 Regulates Proliferation and Confers Sexual Dimorphism in Glioma.Cancer research · 2021Article
- Article
- The enigma of excessively long telomeres in cancer: lessons learned from rare human POT1 variants.Current opinion in genetics & development · 2020Review
- miR-10a suppresses colorectal cancer metastasis by modulating the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and anoikis.Cell death & disease · 2017Article
- Friend or foe? Telomerase as a pharmacological target in cancer and cardiovascular disease.Pharmacological research · 2016Review
- Fanconi anemia proteins in telomere maintenance.DNA repair · 2016Review
- Dimerization of SLX4 contributes to functioning of the SLX4-nuclease complex.Nucleic acids research · 2016Article
- Dissecting Fission Yeast Shelterin Interactions via MICro-MS Links Disruption of Shelterin Bridge to Tumorigenesis.Cell reports · 2015Article
- SLX4 contributes to telomere preservation and regulated processing of telomeric joint molecule intermediates.Nucleic acids research · 2015Article
- Defective repair of uracil causes telomere defects in mouse hematopoietic cells.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2015Article
- Enforced telomere elongation increases the sensitivity of human tumour cells to ionizing radiation.DNA repair · 2015Article
- Rare missense variants in POT1 predispose to familial cutaneous malignant melanoma.Nature genetics · 2014Article
- Telomerase protects werner syndrome lineage-specific stem cells from premature aging.Stem cell reports · 2014Article
- Telomerase variant A279T induces telomere dysfunction and inhibits non-canonical telomerase activity in esophageal carcinomas.PloS one · 2014Article
- Telomere length influences cancer cell differentiation in vivo.Molecular and cellular biology · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Despite the importance of telomere maintenance in cancer cell survival via the elongation of telomeres by telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) or alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT), it had not been tested directly whether telomere maintenance is dispensable for human tumorigenesis. We engineered human tumor cells containing loxP-flanked hTERT to enable extensive telomere elongation prior to complete hTERT excision. Despite unabated telomere erosion, hTERT-excised cells formed tumors in mice and proliferated in vitro for up to 1 year. Telomerase reactivation or ALT was not observed, and the eventual loss of telomeric signal coincided with loss of tumorigenic potential and cell viability. Crisis was averted via the reintroduction of active but not inactive hTERT. Thus, telomere maintenance is dispensable for human tumorigenesis when telomere reserves are long. Yet, despite telomere instability and the presence of oncogenic RAS, human tumors remain susceptible to crisis induced by critically short telomeres.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.