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Tumour suppressors

Teaming up to restrain cancer

Nature volume 391, pages 233–234 (1998)Cite this article

Foremost among the protective mechanisms that have evolved to reduce the likelihood of cancer are the tumour-suppressor genes. As long as they are fully active, these genes serve as potent buffers against tumour progression. Only when one (or more) of them becomes defunct is the gate opened for uncontrolled cell multiplication and cancer.

Perhaps the best known of all tumour-suppressor genes is p53 (ref. 1), which is altered in about half of all human tumours, making it the most frequent target for genetic alterations in cancer. Presumably, loss of the normal p53 protein facilitates the emergence of malignant traits. But, as Garkavtsev et al.2 report on page 295 of this issue, p53 does not restrain cancer single-handedly. Rather, it seems to require an intimate partner — a protein encoded by another tumour-suppressor gene, ING1.

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Figure 1: p33ING1 and p53 as mediators of cell fate.

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  1. the Department of Molecular Cell Biology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel

    Moshe Oren

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  1. Moshe Oren
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Oren, M. Teaming up to restrain cancer. Nature 391, 233–234 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/34551

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