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An elaborate circuitry of biochemical reactions mediates the control of cellular phenotype. We have gained access to this circuitry through the study of genes first recognized in cancer cells, but now known to specify components of the regulatory circuitry in normal cells. The genes are of two sorts: protooncogenes, which display dominant damage in cancer cells; and tumor suppressor genes, which typically display recessive damage. We pursue the function and biological significance of these genes with a combination of tools taken from biochemistry, cell biology, and genetics. Several of the genes we study specify protein-tyrosine kinases that function in the cytoplasm and at the plasma membrane. Others encode nuclear proteins that may participate in the control of transcription. We seek the biochemical mechanisms by which these genes act; their physiological role in the normal organism; and their role in the genesis of human cancer. Our experimental systems are diverse and include yeast, mammalian cells in culture, fruit flies, and transgenic mice. But our purpose is unitary: to determine how normal cells govern their replication and why cancer cells do not. . |
Bishop, J. M. (1991). Molecular themes in oncogenesis (Review). Cell 64: 235-248.
Brown, D., Kogan, S., Lagasse, E., Weissman, I., Alcalay, M., Pelicci, P. G., Atwater, S. and Bishop, J.M. (1997). A PMLRARa transgene initiates murine acute promyelocytic leukemia. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94: 2551-2556. .
Weiss, W. A., Aldape, K., Mohapatra, G., Feuerstein, B. G. and Bishop, J. M. (1997). Targeted expression of MYCN causes neuroblastoma in transgenic mice. EMBO J. l6: 2985-2995.
Katzen, A. L., Jackson, J., Harmon, B. P. and Bishop, J. M. (1998). Drosophila myb plays roles in the G2/M transition and in maintenance of diploidy. Genes Dev. 12: 831-843.
Zhu, J., Woods, S.D., McMahon, and Bishop, J.M. (1998). Senescence of human fibroblasts induced by oncogenic Raf. Genes Dev. 12: 2997-3007.
Zhu, J., Wang, H., Bishop, J.M. and Blackburn, E.H. (1999). Telomerase extends the lifespan of virus-transformed human cells without net telomerase lengthening. PNAS 96: 3723-3728.
Felsher, D.W. and Bishop, J.M. (1999). Reversible tumorigenesis by MYC in hematopoietic lineages. Molec. Cell, in press.
information last updated February 2004 |
Biomedical Sciences (BMS) Graduate Program
