The role of the retinoblastoma gene in breast cancer development.
The observation that the human retinoblastoma gene is inactivated in about 20% of breast carcinomas indicates that it may be important in the development of these tumors. The fact that the loss of RB1 expression correlates with the progression of the disease, and especially with the inability of the cells to differentiate, is consistent with the clinical observation that retinoblastoma does not occur in children in whom the target cells have already fully differentiated. This suggests that the normal function of RB1 is to promote differentiation. It is possible that the loss of the ability of a cell to differentiate contributes to its ability to grow in a foreign environment (metastasis), but this hypothesis remains to be tested. Our observation that the overexpression of RB1 suppresses the growth of these tumor cells in vitro is consistent with this hypotheses.
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D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000235:genetics; D005134:Eye Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D016161:Genes, Retinoblastoma; D006801:Humans; D009154:Mutation; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009363:Neoplasm Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D009378:Neoplasms, Multiple Primary / Q000235:genetics; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D012175:Retinoblastoma / Q000235:genetics; D016160:Retinoblastoma Protein / Q000502:physiology*; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
D009363:Neoplasm Proteins; D016160:Retinoblastoma Protein