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Theranostics 2017; 7(7):1847-1862. doi:10.7150/thno.18930 This issue Cite

Review

Advances in the detection of telomerase activity using isothermal amplification

Xiaojin Zhang¹, Xiaoding Lou^2✉, Fan Xia^{1, 2✉}

1. Faculty of Materials Science and Chemistry, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, P. R. China;
2. Hubei Key Laboratory of Bioinorganic Chemistry & Materia Medica, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, P. R. China.

✉ Corresponding authors: louxiaodingedu.cn (X.D. Lou); xiafanedu.cn (F. Xia).

Abstract

Telomerase plays a significantly important role in keeping the telomere length of a chromosome. Telomerase overexpresses in nearly all tumor cells, suggesting that telomerase could be not only a promising biomarker but also a potential therapeutic target for cancers. Therefore, numerous efforts focusing on the detection of telomerase activity have been reported from polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) assays to PCR-free assays such as isothermal amplification in recent decade. In this review, we highlight the strategies for the detection of telomerase activity using isothermal amplification and discuss some of the challenges in designing future telomerase assays as well.

Keywords: Telomerase activity, isothermal amplification, electrochemical assays, optical assays, signal-transduction assays.

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