Fatma Silan, Ozturk ÖZDEMİR, Furkan Erturk Urfali, Mine Urfali, Atila Gurgen

The comparison of telomere length in cancer patients: Plasma, whole blood and tumor tissue

Telomer dysfunction triggers numerical and structural chromosomal instability and initiates tumorigenesis. Classical biopsies provide information about parts of tumor tissue, but cancer is divided into subgroups according to its mutational and behavioral characteristics. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether the results of cellfree-DNA were compatible with those obtained from tissues and to investigate whether cellfree-DNA telomere length is an alternative non-invasive method for the diagnosis of cancer. This study included the Q-PCR telomere measurement of tumor tissue, peripheral blood and plasma samples in patients with various cancers and peripheral blood and plasma samples of a control group. The telomeric DNA length and T/S ratios were calculated using the T/S ratio (2-ΔΔCt) formula. The median value for the plasma relative T/S ratio of the cancer group was statistically significantly higher than control group. In the cancer group, the lowest relative T/S ratio was found in plasma samples. The mean T/S ratio of whole blood was higher than tumor tissue, and similarly the relative T/S ratio of tumor tissue was higher than plasma T/S ratio( whole blood>tumor tissue>cfDNA). In cancer patients, the longer telomere length suggests that plasma cellfree-DNA telomere length could be a new molecular marker in cancer diagnosis and follow-up.

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