TERT Promoter Mutations Increase Sense and Antisense Transcription from the TERT Promoter.

ABSTRACT: Background: Chief among mechanisms of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) reactivation is the appearance of mutations in the TERT promoter. The two main TERT promoter mutations are C>T transitions located -146C>T and -124C>T upstream from the translational start site. They generate a novel Ets/TCF binding site. Both mutations are mutually exclusive and -124C>T is strikingly overrepresented in most cancers. We investigated whether this mutational bias and mutual exclusion could be due to transcriptional constraints. Methods: We compared sense and antisense transcription of a panel of TERT promoter-luciferase vectors harboring the -124C>T and -146C>T mutations alone or together. lncRNA TAPAS levels were measured by RT-PCR. Results: Both mutations generally increased TERT transcription by

SUBMITTER: Hafezi F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8698883 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature