Interesting Development — In normal cells, tumor suppressor genes prevent cancer by deterring cell replication or promoting controlled cell death. But tumors can form when tumor suppressor genes become inactivated or lost. Until recently, little was known about how tumor-suppressor genes in the Salvador-Warts-Hippo pathway (SWH) function in normal cells. In the January 8, 2015 issue of Developmental Cell, Dr. Nicholas Baker and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Lan-Hsin Wang showed that SWH tumor suppressor genes could be activated when a developmental regulator known as Emc is mistakenly lost. The researchers suggest that, in normal cells, the turning on of SWH genes could serve a protective function in cases where cells make errors of gene expression during development. Their finding may reveal a new function for tumor suppressor genes and may be important to understanding how cancer develops, since the human version of Emc is incorrectly expressed in many cancers, and the SWH pathway is often inactivated. Dr. Baker is professor of genetics, of developmental and molecular biology and of ophthalmology and visual sciences. He also holds the Harold and Muriel Block Chair in Genetics.
Posted on: Monday, March 23, 2015