ArticleNature communications2021
Integrated analysis of telomerase enzymatic activity unravels an association with cancer stemness and proliferation.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed.
- How telomere attrition protects against cancer.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- Aristolochic Acid and Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres Mechanisms Underlie Liver Angiosarcoma Pathogenesis.Liver cancer · 2026Article
- Review
- YAP1 Dysfunction Promotes Molecular Properties Linked to Breast Cancer Susceptibility.Cancer prevention research (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2026Article
- Telomerase Activity in Melanoma: Impact on Cancer Cell Proliferation Kinetics, Tumor Progression, and Clinical Therapeutic Strategies-A Scoping Review.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2026Review
- Article
- Advancing precision medicine with bioelectroanalytical technologies leveraging unconventional nucleic acid forms.Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry · 2026Review
- TERT rs10069690 variant is linked to reduced cholangiocarcinoma incidence but adverse prognosis in patients undergoing resection.eGastroenterology · 2026Article
- Large-scale drug sensitivity, gene dependency, and proteogenomic analyses of telomere maintenance mechanisms in cancer cells.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Spatial colocalization and molecular crosstalk of myofibroblastic CAFs and tumor cells shape lymph node metastasis in oral squamous cell carcinoma.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- Identification of malignant cells in single-cell transcriptomics data.Communications biology · 2025Review
- Genetic regulation of TERT splicing affects cancer risk by altering cellular longevity and replicative potential.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Telomerase in cancer- ongoing quest and future discoveries.Molecular biology reports · 2025Review
- Stratification of telomerase activity in cancer reveals associations with senescence and genomic instability.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2025Article
- Comprehensive analyses of telomerase component DKC1 and its association with clinical, molecular and immune landscapes in uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2025Article
- The role of telomere and telomerase in cancer and novel therapeutic target: narrative review.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Review
- Genetic regulation ofmedRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
- Proteomic basis for pancreatic acinar cell carcinoma and pancreatoblastoma as similar yet distinct entities.NPJ precision oncology · 2024Article
- The 5th Kidney Cancer Research Summit: Research Accelerating Cures for Renal Cell Carcinoma in 2023.The oncologist · 2024Article
- HBV DNA Integration into Telomerase or MLL4 Genes and TERT Promoter Point Mutation as Three Independent Signatures in Subgrouping HBV-Related HCC with Distinct Features.Liver cancer · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Active telomerase is essential for stem cells and most cancers to maintain telomeres. The enzymatic activity of telomerase is related but not equivalent to the expression of TERT, the catalytic subunit of the complex. Here we show that telomerase enzymatic activity can be robustly estimated from the expression of a 13-gene signature. We demonstrate the validity of the expression-based approach, named EXTEND, using cell lines, cancer samples, and non-neoplastic samples. When applied to over 9,000 tumors and single cells, we find a strong correlation between telomerase activity and cancer stemness. This correlation is largely driven by a small population of proliferating cancer cells that exhibits both high telomerase activity and cancer stemness. This study establishes a computational framework for quantifying telomerase enzymatic activity and provides new insights into the relationships among telomerase, cancer proliferation, and stemness.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.