What Is the Role of Telomerase in Neuroblastomas?
Previous studies proposed that neuroblastomas with low telomerase activity might consist of cells that completely failed to repress telomerase activity during development, whereas tumors with high telomerase activity are likely to be derived from an immortalization event in a single cell.15,29,41,42 This condition renders clinical implications, since high telomerase activity is supposed to be accompanied by several genetic alterations and poor prognosis, whereas low or even absent telomerase activity in neuroblastomas coincides with good prognosis, and eventually, spontaneous regression.15,29 Exact prognostic implications on the basis of this two-entity model have so far been hampered by insufficient distinction of activity levels due to positivity for telomerase activity in the vast majority of neuroblastomas.29,41 Table 2 Table 2 In our study, a total of 133 neuroblastomas of all stages were analyzed in blind-trial fashion by a modified nonradioactive and semiquantitative TRAP (telom
