title: The presence of p53 mutations in human osteosarcomas correlates with high levels of genomic instability.
abstract: The p53 gene is a critical tumor suppressor that is inactivated in a majority of cancers. The central role of p53 in response to stresses such as DNA damage, hypoxia, and oncogene activation underlies this high frequency of negative selection during tumorigenic transformation. Mutations in p53 disrupt checkpoint responses to DNA damage and result in the potential for destabilization of the genome. Consistent with this, p53 mutant cells have been shown to accumulate genomic alterations in cell culture, mouse models, and some human tumors. The relationship between p53 mutation and genomic instability in human osteosarcoma is addressed in this report. Similar to some other primary human tumors, the mutation of p53 correlates significantly with the presence of high levels of genomic instability in osteosarcomas. Surprisingly, osteosarcomas harboring an amplification of the HDM2 oncogene, which inhibits the tumor-suppressive properties of p53, do not display high levels of genomic instability. These results demonstrate that the inactivation of p53 in osteosarcomas directly by mutation versus indirectly by HDM2 amplification may have different cellular consequences with respect to the stability of the genome.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Cancer Biology, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Overholtzer
authors.forename: Pulivarthi H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.forename: Reyna
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Favis
authors.forename: Xin-Yan
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Michael B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Elowitz
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Barany
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ladanyi
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gorlick
authors.forename: Arnold J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Levine
mesh_terms: D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics; D016158:Genes, p53; D016678:Genome; D006801:Humans; D009154:Mutation; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D012516:Osteosarcoma / Q000235:genetics*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D051736:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-mdm2
chemical_list: D004273:DNA, Neoplasm; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; C497206:MDM2 protein, human; D051736:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-mdm2