FINDINGS
UCLA researchers
have found that a Chinese herbal regimen called TSY-1 (Tianshengyuan-1)
increased telomerase activity in normal blood cells but decreased it in
cancer cells. Telomerase is an enzyme responsible for the production of
telomeres, which play an important role in the regulation of normal cell
division. These results indicate that telomerase-based treatments may
play an important role in treating both blood cell deficiency and
cancer.
BACKGROUND
More than 80 percent of cancers have increased telomerase activity,
and other medical conditions are also associated with decreased or
abnormal telomerase function. The ability to increase or decrease
telomerase activity has important implications for treating cancers in
which insufficient numbers of blood cells are produced. When a person’s
bone marrow is unable to keep up with the need for healthy blood cells,
bone marrow failure is triggered. Bone marrow failure affects about
seven in 100,000 people annually.
TSY-1 has been used in China for many years to treat aplastic anemia,
a condition in which the body stops producing enough new blood cells
and myelodysplastic syndrome or preleukemia; both are associated with
telomerase abnormality.
METHOD
The five-year study, led by UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center
member Dr. Jianyu Rao, measured the ability of TSY-1 to affect
telomerase activity in cancer cells lines, including one known as HL-60,
as well as normal peripheral blood mononuclear and hematopoietic stem
cells. Rao’s team used various approaches, including assays of
telomerase activity, measurement of cell growth, and gene expression
profiling of TSY-1 treated cells, to determine how it acts. The results
showed that the target of TSY-1 activity is the TERT gene. TERT is the
major regulatory component of telomerase activity.
IMPACT
The findings provide the foundation and support for further clinical
studies to demonstrate the clinical benefit of this treatment for cancer
and blood cell deficiencies.
AUTHORS
In addition to Rao, senior author of the study and professor in the
department of pathology and laboratory medicine at the David Geffen
School of Medicine at UCLA, Dr. Weibo Yu is first author of the study
and a research scholar and post-doctoral fellow at UCLA. Other
co-authors of the study include: Dr. Gang Zeng, UCLA associate professor
in the department of urology and Dr. Zuo-Feng Zhang, professor in the
department of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
JOURNAL
The study is published online today in the journal OncoTarget.
FUNDING
