Lipoblastomas are pediatric neoplasms resulting from transformation of adipocytes. These benign tumors are typically composed of adipose cells in different stages of maturation within a variably myxoid matrix, and they contain clonal rearrangements of chromosome band 8q12. Because lipoblastomas resemble embryonic adipose tissue, characterization of their transforming mechanisms might reveal bio...

Experiments carried out over the past 10-12 years have created a field or approach which may properly be termed the molecular basis of cancer. One of its major accomplishments has been the identification and understanding of some of the functions of a group of cancer-causing genes, the oncogenes. The major path to the oncogenes came from the study of cancercausing viruses. The oncogenes have be...

The genetic paradigm of cancer — that tumors arise as a consequence of the accumulation of mutations in genes controlling cell proliferation, differentiation or death — is now widely accepted. The purpose of this is lecture provide a review of current knowledge on the various types of cancer genes identified so far in different stages of tumor development. We will also address recent attempts t...

The oncogenes MYCN and survivin (BIRC5) maintain aggressiveness of diverse cancers including sarcomas. To investigate whether these oncogenes cooperate in initial malignant transformation, we transduced them into Rat-1 fibroblasts. Indeed, survivin enhanced MYCN-driven contact-uninhibited and anchorage-independent growth in vitro. Importantly, upon subcutaneous transplantation into mice, cells ...

Using the NIH/3T3 cell transfection assay, activated cellular oncogenes have been detected in around 10% to 20% of human tumors. From a series of DNA preparations from tissues infiltrated with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), 50% (3/6) caused transformation of NIH/3T3 cells. Thus AML appears to be the human tumor with the highest frequency of oncogenes detected by DNA transfection. In each cas...

Breast cancer progression involves multiple genetic events, which can activate dominant-acting oncogenes and disrupt the function of specific tumor suppressor genes. This article describes several key oncogene and tumor suppressor signaling networks that have been implicated in breast cancer progression. Among the tumor suppressors, the article emphasizes BRCA1/2 and p53 tumor suppressors. In a...

The ability to target oncogenes in malignancies such as CML, GIST, APML and ERBB2-positive breast cancer has revolutionized the management of those diseases. Interesting over 70% of melanomas contain genomic amplification or mutations in one of the oncogenes BRAF, NRAS, KIT, CCND1 or CDK4 that may induce an oncogene addicted state. Inhibition of BRAF with Vemurafenib or GSK2118436 in BRAF-mutan...

p53 is activated by a variety of cellular stresses, including DNA damage, hypoxia, and mitogenic oncogenes, but the extent to which each signal engages p53 as a tumour suppressor remains unknown. In non-immortal cells, the adenovirus E1A oncogene activates p53 to promote apoptosis, whereas oncogenic ras activates p53 to promote cellular senescence. Inactivation of p53 prevents E1A-induced apopt...

Human thyroid epithelial (follicular) cells give rise to two malignant tumors—"follicular" carcinomas, which metastasize almost exclusively via the bloodstream, and "papillary" carcinomas, which metastasize predominantly via lymphatics (Williams, E. D. In: W. Duncan (ed.), Recent Results in Cancer Research: Thyroid Cancer, pp. 47-55. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1980). We have investigated whethe...