ArticlePloS one2013
Mitochondrial telomerase protects cancer cells from nuclear DNA damage and apoptosis.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 99 papers.
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Who cites it
99 citing papers in PubMed, 190 citations in OpenAlex.
- Redox regulation of telomerase and telomeres in cancer: a critical appraisal of exposure, causality and molecular directness.Molecular biology reports · 2026Review
- Assessing telomerase and Ki-67 protein expression in pre-invasive lesions and invasive cervical neoplasia with correlation to clinico-pathological parameters.Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico · 2026Article
- Article
- CK1-induced TERT phosphorylation mediates mitochondrial translocation to inhibit cardiomyocyte senescence and alleviate myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury.Cell biology and toxicology · 2026Article
- Improvement of fertility in female mice by treatment with novel telomerase-increasing compounds.Reproductive biology and endocrinology : RB&E · 2026Article
- Type 2 Diabetes From the Perspective of Telomere Biology.Endocrinology, diabetes & metabolism · 2026Review
- Telomeric Ends and Telomerase-Canonical and Non-Canonical Roles in Breast Cancer Tumorigenesis and Therapy Resistance.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Telomerase mRNA therapy protects human skin against radiation-induced DNA damage.Molecular therapy : the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy · 2026Article
- TERT translocation to mitochondria: Exploring its role in mitochondrial homeostasis.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- Telomerase inhibitors TMPyP4 and BIBR 1532 show synergistic antitumor activity in combination with chemotherapeutic drugs.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Telomerase reverse transcriptase degradation via a rationally designed covalent proteolysis targeting chimera.Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry letters · 2025Article
- Beyond Telomeres: Unveiling the Extratelomeric Functions of TERT in B-Cell Malignancies.Cancers · 2025Review
- Geographic and Viral Etiology Patterns ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- 3,5-Disubstituted pyrazoline as a promising core for anticancer agents: mechanisms of action and therapeutic potentials.Future medicinal chemistry · 2025Review
- Telomeres, telomerase, and cancer: mechanisms, biomarkers, and therapeutics.Experimental hematology & oncology · 2025Review
- A Review of Telomere Attrition in Cancer and Aging: Current Molecular Insights and Future Therapeutic Approaches.Cancers · 2025Review
- Immortalization of Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Application in Regenerative Medicine and Their Potential Risks of Tumorigenesis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Inhibition of the E3 ligase UBR5 stabilizes TERT and protects vascular organoids from oxidative stress.Journal of translational medicine · 2024Article
- Examining transfer of TERT to mitochondria under oxidative stress.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The role of ceranib-2 and its nanoform on the decrease of telomerase levels in human non-small cell cancer.Molecular biology reports · 2024Article
39 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Most cancer cells express high levels of telomerase and proliferate indefinitely. In addition to its telomere maintenance function, telomerase also has a pro-survival function resulting in an increased resistance against DNA damage and decreased apoptosis induction. However, the molecular mechanisms for this protective function remain elusive and it is unclear whether it is connected to telomere maintenance or is rather a non-telomeric function of the telomerase protein, TERT. It was shown recently that the protein subunit of telomerase can shuttle from the nucleus to the mitochondria upon oxidative stress where it protects mitochondrial function and decreases intracellular oxidative stress. Here we show that endogenous telomerase (TERT protein) shuttles from the nucleus into mitochondria upon oxidative stress in cancer cells and analyzed the nuclear exclusion patterns of endogenous telomerase after treatment with hydrogen peroxide in different cell lines. Cell populations excluded TERT from the nucleus upon oxidative stress in a heterogeneous fashion. We found a significant correlation between nuclear localization of telomerase and high DNA damage, while cells which excluded telomerase from the nucleus displayed no or very low DNA damage. We modeled nuclear and mitochondrial telomerase using organelle specific localization vectors and confirmed that mitochondrial localization of telomerase protects the nucleus from inflicted DNA damage and apoptosis while, in contrast, nuclear localization of telomerase correlated with higher amounts of DNA damage and apoptosis. It is known that nuclear DNA damage can be caused by mitochondrially generated reactive oxygen species (ROS). We demonstrate here that mitochondrial localization of telomerase specifically prevents nuclear DNA damage by decreasing levels of mitochondrial ROS. We suggest that this decrease of oxidative stress might be a possible cause for high stress resistance of cancer cells and could be especially important for cancer stem cells.
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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.