p53 ancestry: gazing through an evolutionary lens.

Lu, Wan-Jin; Amatruda, James F; Abrams, John M · Nat Rev Cancer · 2009

review · Level V

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Abstract

Evolutionary patterns indicate that primordial p53 genes predated the appearance of cancer. Therefore, wild-type tumour suppressive functions and mutant oncogenic functions that give celebrity status to this gene family were probably co-opted from unrelated primordial activities. Is it possible to deduce what these early functions might have been? And might this knowledge provide a platform for therapeutic opportunities?

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