title: Whole-body interdiction of lengthening of telomeres: a proposal for cancer prevention.
abstract: The intrinsic genetic instability of cancer cells makes age-related cancers more difficult to postpone or treat than any other age-related diseases. Any treatment that a cancer can resist by activating or inactivating specific genes is unlikely to succeed over the long term, because pre-existing cancer cells with the necessary gene expression pattern will withstand the therapy and proliferate. "Whole-body Interdiction of Lengthening of Telomeres" (WILT) is a proposal to pre-empt this problem by deleting from as many of our cells as possible the genes needed for telomere elongation. Cancers lacking these genes can never reach a life-threatening stage by altering gene expression, only by acquiring new genes, which is far more unlikely. Continuously-renewing tissues can be maintained by periodic reseeding with telomere elongation-incompetent stem cells that have had their telomeres lengthened in vitro with exogenous telomerase. Here, I describe why WILT might prove to be an exceptionally powerful anti-cancer modality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EH, United Kingdom. ag24@gen.cam.ac.uk
authors.forename: Aubrey D N J
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: de Grey
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D019098:Telomerase / Q000235:genetics*; D016615:Telomere / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D019098:Telomerase