Mouse Model Systems to Study Multistep Tumorigenesis
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
Cancer is a complex process in which a normal cell has to accumulate multiple genetic and epigenetic alterations in order to become a highly malignant metastasizing tumor cell. Over the years, efforts have concentrated on identifying the sequence of events leading to the malignant phenotype of tumor cells. Our understanding of this process is steadily growing with the identification of an increasing number of genes that are frequently modified in tumors and with the characterization of their role in specific processes of cell proliferation and transformation. During the last decade, genetically manipulated animal models, primarily transgenic mice, have become an invaluable tool to identify and characterize the in vivo function of genes involved in the different steps of tumorigenesis. Presently, transgenic mice can be designed such that they are predisposed to defined tumors, thereby allowing the investigator to focus on these various steps in the tumorigenic process: acquisition of growth...
