Abstract
Tumors, including osteosarcoma (OS), are capable of evading senescence and cell death, which is caused by telomere loss with cell division. Alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) is considered as the main telomere maintenance mechanism in OS. In this study, we investigated the expression of ALT-associated proteins and mRNAs in human OS cell lines. Western blotting was used to detect the protein expression in OS cell lines, while the expression of mRNA was determined by reverse-transcriptase PCR and quantitative real-time PCR analysis. Whole-genome expression arrays were used to analyze the expression of all the mRNAs involved in telomere maintenance mechanisms (TMMs) including human telomerase reverse transcriptase, promyelocytic leukemia proteins and other related proteins. OS and normal cell lines do not express telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) as a key subunit of telomerase, although they show varying levels of ALT-associated proteins and mRNAs such as PML, Rad52, MRE11 and FEN1 by Western blotting and quantitative real-time PCR analysis. A number of mRNAs that play essential roles in ALT are expressed more in OS cell lines than in the osteoblast cell line, as shown by whole-genome expression arrays. In conclusion, OS cell lines maintain their telomere length primarily through the ALT mechanism. There are numerous other proteins that regulate this process in OS; therefore, anti-ALT therapy may be a more effective method to treat OS than anti-telomerase therapy.