TERT and cancer: Importantly, TERT was previously shown to promote the proliferation of normal mouse stem cells by recruiting chromatin-remodeling factor Brg1 to β-catenin target genes for their transcriptional activation [17]; and more recently, TERT was found to directly interact with β-catenin and robustly amplify its transcriptional outputs, thereby stimulating epithelial mesenchymal transformation (EMT) and stemness of cancer cells [12, 13].