Abstract:

Objective　To studytelomerase activity and expression of oncogenes c-mycand p53 in tongue cancer, analyse the interaction among them, and assess their possible correlations with tongue cancer clinicopathological features.Methods　To detective the telomerase activity by TRAP and examine the positive expression of c-mycand p53 in tongue cancer by hybridization in situ.Results　A high telomerase activity existed in lower differentiated tongue cancer (P<0·05); the positive expression of c-mycincreased significantly in lowergrade tongue cancer (P<0·05) and the positive expression of p53 decreased increasingly in tongue cancer accompanied with lymph node metastasis (P<0·05).Conclusion　Telomerase may play a key role in the tumori- genesis of tongue cancer. Meantime, c-mycand p53 exerts important effect on telomerase activation during the course of tongue cancer generation and development.

Key words: telomerase, c-myc, p53, tongue cancer, hybridizationin situ