HR-HPV infection and integration related to telomere elongation and DNA methylation of human telomerase reverse transcriptase may be a potential biomarker of prognosis in patients with ESCC.
Our study demonstrates that within a single MLPA-reaction viral type, load, integration and gain of TERC and TERT can be reliably determined, which will improve risk assessment for patients suspected for HPV infection.
Oncogenic human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the most important risk factor in cervical carcinogenesis cases; high viral loads, viral integration into the host genome, and gain of the telomerase-related genes, TERT and TERC, are all factors associated with progression to cancer.
High expression of human telomerase reverse transcriptase in high-grade intraepithelial neoplasia and carcinoma of uterine cervix and its correlation with human papillomavirus infection.
Moreover, the hTERT alterations with the enhanced hTERT expression were exclusively observed in those tumors with high-risk human papillomavirus infection.