European Journal of Cancer: Highlights of Issue 39:10

Drosophila is an important tool

Tumour suppressors in Drosophila

In an elegant review in this issue entitled "Tumour suppressors- a fly's perspective" Sutcliffe and colleagues compare and contrast tumour suppressor pathways in humans and flies. They discuss the advantages of the fly system, such as its simplicity and reduced redundancy, that helps aid both genetic and biochemical studies. The authors also point to some intriguing differences to emerge from research in the two systems. For example, dmp53, the Drosophila homologue of human p53, lacks the cell cycle arresting function of its human counterpart. Furthermore, important p53 regulators such as MDM2 and ARF are absent in the fly system. The authors conclude that research into fly tumour suppressors has raised "more questions than answers", but that "Drosophila is an important tool" to aid in our understanding of these regulators in humans.

Mismatch repair deficiency is rare in SCLC

The role of mismatch repair (MMR) in small cell lung cancer cells (SCLC) is currently unclear. In this issue, Hansen and colleagues examined the MMR pathway in 21 SCLC cell lines. They found that protein and RNA expression was heterogeneous among the cell lines. However, the protein and RNA levels of several MMR components were correlated. Only one of the cell lines tested, 86MI, was MMR-deficient and resistant to an alkylating agent, MNNG, despite showing average levels of protein and RNA expression. Surprisingly, 86MI cells did not exhibit microsatellite instability (MSI). The authors speculate on the reasons for this deficiency in the absence of detectable MSI and conclude that MMR deficiency is rare in the pathogenesis of SCLC.

Endothelin expression in oesophageal SCC

Ishibashi and colleagues report in this issue that endothelin expression might help to predict the prognosis of patients with oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Using immunohistochemistry, they examined the expression of this vasoactive peptide in 101 patients in their cancerous lesions, adjacent dysplastic tissue and normal mucosa. They found that high expression levels were observed in normal mucosa when the patients had lymph vessel invasion, regional lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis. There was also a reduced relapsed-free survival in these patients. They concluded that the expression of endothelin could be a useful prognostic indicator in oesophageal SCC patients.

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