Colon cancer and DNA repair: have mismatches met their match?
Recently, both a common inherited human cancer, hereditary non-polyposis colorectal carcinoma (HNPCC), and certain sporadic human cancers have been shown to have frequent alterations in microsatellite sequences. These were ascribed to a defect in the correction of errors of replication; indeed, the cell line H6, which is derived from an HNPCC tumour, has been shown to be deficient in mismatch repair. The HNPCC locus on chromosome 2p has been linked to a gene hMSH2, which encodes a 100 kDa mismatch-binding protein that has an extensive degree of sequence conservation from bacteria through yeast to humans. But could a malfunction of this protein alone cause cancer?
Department of Biochemistry, Istituto di Richerche di Biologia Molecolare P. Angeletti, Pomezia, Italy.
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D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D003123:Colorectal Neoplasms, Hereditary Nonpolyposis / Q000235:genetics*; D004260:DNA Repair; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics*; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D051718:MutS Homolog 2 Protein; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins / Q000235:genetics*
D004273:DNA, Neoplasm; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; C497172:MSH2 protein, human; D051718:MutS Homolog 2 Protein