Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Computationally Designed Peptide Inhibitors Against The Ubiquitin E3 Ligase Scf Fbx4, Bing Hao

UCHC Articles - Research

Telomerase is a reverse transcriptase that maintains telomere length. Telomerase activity is suppressed in somatic cells such that telomere attrition triggers replicative senescence or apop-tosis. In cancer cells, telomerase is up-regulated or reactivated, effectively making the cell immortal. Previous studies have shown that telomerase activity positively correlates with unfavorable cancer prognosis. Since it was discovered that activation of telomerase is a rate-limiting step in carcinogenesis, telomerase has gained much interest as a drug target. Both screening and structure-based methods have been extensively employed to identify small molecule leads that can selectively disrupt telomerase activity. Strategies commonly used to target telomerase …