Discovery of the First Tumour Suppressor Gene

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Studies of human hereditary cancers provided compelling evidence for the existence of tumour suppressor genes. In 1971 American researcher Alfred Knudson, Jr., focused on retinoblastoma, which occurs in two forms: a nonhereditary, or sporadic, form and a hereditary form that occurs much earlier in life.

To explain the differences in tumour rates between these two forms, Knudson proposed a ''two-hit hypothesis.'' He postulated that in the inherited form of the disease, a child inherits one mutated RB allele from a parent. This single mutation, which is present in every cell, is not sufficient to stimulate tumour formation because the second copy of the RB allele, which is not mutated, functions normally.

For a tumour to form, one random mutation must occur in the healthy RB allele of a retinal cell after conception. In contrast, in sporadic cases of retinoblastoma, a sequence of two inactivating events must occur after conception. Because it is much less likely that two random mutation events will occur in the same gene than that one random event will occur, the rate of occurrence of nonhereditary retinoblastoma is much lower than that of the inherited form.

The protein E2F is a transcription factor that binds to DNA to stimulate the synthesis of proteins necessary for cell division. When E2F is bound to the RB protein, however, it cannot bind to DNA. Thus, when functioning normally, the RB protein prevents a cell from dividing by binding to E2F. When RB is absent or inactivated, this restraint is lost, and E2F is constantly available to trigger cell division.

The p53 protein was discovered in 1979. It resides in the nucleus, where it regulates cell proliferation and cell death. In particular, it prevents cells with damaged DNA from dividing or, when damage is too great, promotes apoptosis. Cells exposed to mutagens (chemicals or radiation capable of mutating the DNA) need time to repair any genetic damage they sustain so that they do not copy errors into the DNA of their daughter cells. When mutations occur, normal levels of the p53 protein rise, which slows the transition of the cell cycle from the G1 phase to the S phase. This extra time allows DNA repair mechanisms to effectively restore the DNA sequences to normalcy. The brakes on the cell cycle — high p53 levels — are then removed, and the cell proceeds to divide.

If there is a large amount of genetic damage, p53 triggers a series of biochemical reactions that cause the cell to self-destruct. Total functional inactivation of the p53 gene will cause genetic damage to accumulate in the cell and will also fail to set off apoptosis in severely injured cells.

Both radiation therapy and chemotherapy can kill tumour cells by stimulating apoptosis. Some tumours that have lost p53 function are more resistant to therapy because of the cells' diminished capacity to trigger cell death.

Inactivation of the p53 gene occurs through mutation of one allele and loss of the other accounts for 70 percent of cases of colon carcinoma, 30 to 50 percent of cases of breast cancer, and 50 percent of cases of lung cancer. In two other types of cancer, inactivation of the p53 gene occurs not through mutation and loss of the alleles but through binding of the p53 protein with another protein (called an antagonist) that disables p53 function. One such antagonist, called MDM2, is involved in sarcomas. Other antagonists are the ''early proteins'' produced by cancer-causing strains of the human papillomavirus.

Other tumour suppressor genes that have been discovered through the study of familial cancers include the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are associated with about 5 percent of hereditary breast cancers; the APC gene, linked to familial adenomatous polyposis coli (a hereditary form of colon cancer that causes thousands of polyps to form in the colon, some of which can become cancerous); the WT1 gene, involved in Wilms tumour of the kidney; the VHL gene, associated with kidney cancer and von Hippel-Lindau disease; and the NF1 and NF2 genes, responsible for certain forms of neurofibromatosis.

Tumour suppressor genes discovered through the study of hereditary cancers also play a role in sporadic cancers. For example, hereditary melanoma is associated with a loss of function of the tumour suppressor gene called MTS1 (from multiple tumour suppressor), which also goes awry in a variety of sporadic tumours. MTS1 codes for a protein called p16.

When functioning properly, the p16 protein prevents the cell cycle from progressing from the G1 stage to the S stage through an interaction with the RB protein. In cells in which p16 function is lost, the transition from G1 to S is not slowed. This transition point in the cell cycle seems to be extremely important to cellular health, since about 80 percent of human tumours exhibit a problem there.