Telomerase Activity in Chicken Embryo Fibroblast Cell Cultures Infected with Marek's Disease Virus

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein, which adds telomeric repeats onto the 3’ end of existing telomers at the end of chromosomes ineukaryotes. One hypothesis states that telomere length may function as a mitotic clock, therefore expression of telomerase activity in cancer cells may be a necessary and essential step for tumor development and progression. The detectability of telomerase activity in chicken embryo fibroblast (CEF) cells infected with different passages of Marek's disease virus(MDV) was tested with the TRAPEZE® telomerase detection kit at passages 14 (P14), P80/1 and P120 for the Woodland strain, and passage 9 (P9) for the MPF57 strain. The results showed increased telomerase activity in MDV Woodlands strain at P14 and MPF57 strain at P9. Our results suggest that MDV-transformed cells at low passage are a suitable system for the study of telomerases in tumor development and for testing telomerase-inhibiting drugs.