Cell Lineage and Cell Death: Caenorhabditis Elegans and Cancer Research

Overview

Journal Nat Rev Cancer

Specialty Oncology

Date 2010 Dec 15

PMID 21150934

Citations 15

Authors

Malia B Potts

Scott Cameron

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Cancer is a complex disease in which cells have circumvented normal restraints on tissue growth and have acquired complex abnormalities in their genomes, posing a considerable challenge to identifying the pathways and mechanisms that drive fundamental aspects of the malignant phenotype. Genetic analyses of the normal development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans have revealed evolutionarily conserved mechanisms through which individual cells establish their fates, and how they make and execute the decision to survive or undergo programmed cell death. The pathways identified through these studies have mammalian counterparts that are co-opted by malignant cells. Effective cancer drugs now target some of these pathways, and more are likely to be discovered.

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