Antitumor effects of telomerase inhibitor TMPyP4 in osteosarcoma cell lines

Telomere studies in carcinomas have been extensively reported for prognostic utility and effective methods for targeting telomerase therapy has been described, but efficacy of telomerase inhibitor remained unknown in sarcoma cells. In this study, we investigated the effects of telomerase inhibitor cationic porphyrin TMPyP4 on telomerase activity, telomere length, cell growth, and apoptosis in osteosarcoma cell lines. TMPyP4 significantly inhibited telomerase activity in telomerase positive HOS and Saos‐2, but not in MG‐63. TMPyP4 significantly induced telomere shortening, and inhibition of the cell growth in HOS and Saos‐2 with over 17% apoptosis rates. In terms of MG‐63, TMPyP4 did not induce inhibition of both telomerase activity and cell growth, although it induced significant telomere shortening. Telomere length after treatment was 5.60 kb in HOS, 4.00 kb in Saos‐2, and 9.89 kb in MG‐63. These results may suggest that both telomerase activity loss and sufficient telomere shortening are necessary to inhibit cell growth in telomerase positive osteosarcoma cells. TMPyP4 did not induced telomere shortening but significantly inhibited the growth with 22.6% apoptosis rate in telomerase negative with extremely longer telomere‐U2OS, may indicating the antitumor effect of TMPyP4 may be related to DNA damage including telomere dysfunction through G‐quadruplex stabilization, independent on telomere length. © 2011 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 29:1707–1711, 2011