Source:
Generated By: https://synbiohub.org/public/igem/igem2sbol/1
Created by: Hao Wang
Date created: 2015-08-31 11:00:00
Date modified: 2015-09-07 08:15:36
hTERT is a tumor specific promoter.
| Types | DnaRegion |
| Roles | promoter Regulatory |
| Sequences | BBa_K1722002_sequence (Version 1) |
Description
hTERT is a tumor specific promoter which is short for human telomerase reverse transcriptase. The human telomerase enzyme complex consists of human telomerase reverse transcriptase(TERT), telomerase RNA(TR) and dyskerin(DKCI). This class of enzyme can catalyze the adding of (TTAGGG)n to the 3' end of telomeres to elongate the telomeres, thus prolonging cells' life. Researches show that the telomerase activity is based mostly on the expression level of TERT instead of that of TR and TEP. High telomerase activities are tested on most high proliferation cells such as tumor cells and stem cells. The core region of hTERT promoter lies on the 181bp sequence upstream of transcriptional start site, involving several binding sites for transcriptional factors, like sp1, cmyc, p53 and mad1. Researches show that hTERT promoters are activated in tumor cells that are telomerase positive while being inhibited in normal cells that are telomerase negative, which indicates that hTERT promoter may specifically target at tumor cells. Gu et al found the transcriptional activity of CMV promoter was almost 500 times higher than that of hTERT promoter in normal cells. However, the magnification shrinked to only 5-20 in tumor cells.So in this study, we choose hTERT as a promoter to specifically recognise cancer cells to express the downstream effector. We constructed hTERT and GFP in the same plasmid and inserted the plasmid into T24, a bladder cancer cell line, to test if hTERT can be activated inside the cell. Luckily, we saw green fluorescent light using confocal laser scanning microscopy.