Leukocyte Telomeric G-Tail Length Shortening Is Associated with Esophageal Cancer Recurrence

Abstract

Despite significant advances in therapeutics for esophageal cancer (ESC) in the past decade, it remains the sixth most fatal malignancy, with a poor 5-year survival rate (approximately 10%). There is an urgent need to improve the timely diagnosis to aid the prediction of the therapeutic response and prognosis of patients with ESC. The telomeric G-tail plays an important role in the chromosome protection. However, aging and age-related diseases lead to its shortening. Therefore, the G-tail length has been proposed as a novel potential biomarker. In the present study, to examine the possibility of G-tail shortening in patients with ESC, we measured the leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and the G-tail length using a hybridization protection assay in 147 patients with ESC and 170 age-matched healthy controls. We found that the G-tail length in patients with ESC was shorter than that in the healthy controls (p = 0.02), while the LTL shortening was not correlated with the ESC incidence and recurrence. Our results suggest that the G-tail length reflects the physiological status of patients with ESC and is a promising biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of ESC.