title: Hormonal control of p53 and chemoprevention.
abstract: Improvements in the detection and treatment of breast cancer have dramatically altered its clinical course and outcome. However, prevention of breast cancer remains an elusive goal. Parity, age of menarche, and age at menopause are major risk factors drawing attention to the important role of the endocrine system in determining the risk of breast cancer, while heritable breast cancer susceptibility syndromes have implicated tumor suppressor genes as important targets. Recent work demonstrating hormonal modulation of the p53 tumor suppressor pathway draws together these established determinants of risk to provide a model of developmental susceptibility to breast cancer. In this model, the mammary epithelium is rendered susceptible due to impaired p53 activity during specific periods of mammary gland development, but specific endocrine stimuli serve to activate p53 function and to mitigate this risk. The results focus attention on p53 as a molecular target for therapies to reduce the risk of breast cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA. jjerry@vasci.umass.edu
authors.forename: D Joseph
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Jerry
authors.forename: Lisa M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Minter
authors.forename: Klaus A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.forename: Anneke C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Blackburn
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D018890:Chemoprevention; D005260:Female; D016147:Genes, Tumor Suppressor; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006728:Hormones / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006801:Humans; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53
chemical_list: D006728:Hormones; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53