T-Cells With Extremely Short Telomeres And High Telomerase Activity In T-Cell Prolymphocytic Leukemia (T-Pll): The Ideal Target For Telomerase Inhibition.

T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL) is a rare aggressive lymphoproliferative disease characterized by the expansion of a T-cell clone derived from immuno-competent post-thymic T-lymphocytes. Important mechanisms involved in expansion of human malignant cells are reactivation of telomerase, an enzyme complex, which is able to compensate the loss of telomere repeats by cell division, and maintenance or elongation of telomere length.