Critical pathways in cellular senescence and immortalization revealed by gene expression profiling.

ABSTRACT: Bypassing cellular senescence and becoming immortal is a prerequisite step in the tumorigenic transformation of a cell. It has long been known that loss of a key tumor suppressor gene, such as p53, is necessary, but not sufficient, for spontaneous cellular immortalization. Therefore, there must be additional mutations and/or epigenetic alterations required for immortalization to occur. Early work on these processes included somatic cell genetic studies to estimate the number of senescence genes, and microcell-mediated transfer of chromosomes into immortalized cells to identify putative senescence-inducing genetic loci. These principal studies laid the foundation for the field of senescence/immortalization, but were labor intensive and the results were somewhat limited. The advent of gene e

SUBMITTER: Fridman AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3843241 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature