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p73, the “Assistant” Guardian of the Genome?
Author(s) -
MELINO GERRY
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1299.002
Subject(s) - guardian , genome , encode , dna , genetics , dna damage , human genome , dna repair , p53 protein , biology , cancer research , gene , chemistry , organic chemistry
A bstract : Although p53 is clearly involved in the salvage pathway to DNA damage, its frequent mutations do not explain the efficacy of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Indeed, around 50% of all human cancers show mutations in p53, and a further fraction show a functional inactivation of the protein. Nevertheless, patients seem to respond to therapy that would otherwise require a functional p53. At least in part, these responses could be explained by the pathway mediated by p73. This mechanism is parallel to, but independent of the p53 pathway. Several pieces of evidence show a significant interaction between these two proteins. Therefore, while p53 can be rightly defined as the guardian of the genome, we could think of p73 as the “assistant” guardian of the genome!