Abstract
Ganiou Assani1,2,3, Yudi Xiong1,2,3, Fuxiang Zhou1,2,3 and Yunfeng Zhou1,2,3
1Department of Radiation and Medical Oncology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
2Hubei Cancer Clinical Study Center, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
3Hubei Key Laboratory of Tumor Biology Behaviors, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Correspondence to:
Yunfeng Zhou, email: yfzhouwhu@163.com
Keywords: cancer cells; telomere; telomerase; radiosensitivity; radiotherapy
Received: May 29, 2018 Accepted: July 31, 2018 Published: October 09, 2018
ABSTRACT
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the world. Many strategies of cancer treatment such as radiotherapy which plays a key role in cancer treatment are developed and used nowadays. However, the side effects post-cancer radiotherapy and cancer radioresistance are two major causes of the limitation of cancer radiotherapy effectiveness in the cancer patients. Moreover, reduction of the limitation of cancer radiotherapy effectiveness by reducing the side effects post-cancer radiotherapy and cancer radioresistance is the aim of several radiotherapy-oncologic teams. Otherwise, Telomere and telomerase are two cells components which play an important role in cancer initiation, cancer progression and cancer therapy resistance such as radiotherapy resistance. For resolving the problems of the limitation of cancer radiotherapy effectiveness especially the cancer radio-resistance problems, the radio-gene-therapy strategy which is the use of gene-therapy via modulation of gene expression combined with radiotherapy was developed and used as a new strategy to treat the patients with cancer. In this review, we summarized the information concerning the implication of telomere and telomerase modulation in cancer radiosensitivity.