Our data suggest that MTS-1 deletions and mutations may play an important role in the molecular pathogenesis of esophagus squamous cell and pancreatic cancers.
These findings suggest that, although p16/CDKN2 may play a role in the pathobiology of pancreatic cancer, inactivation of this putative tumor suppressor gene occurs more frequently in cell lines than in primary ductal pancreatic carcinomas.
Germline mutations in BRCA2 have been shown to predispose to both breast and pancreatic cancer, germline mutations in p16 to melanoma and pancreatic cancer (the FAMMM syndrome), and genetic mutations in STK11/LKB1 to pancreatic cancer in patients with the Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome (PJS).
The implications of the capacity of the INK4a/ARF locus to encode a third transcript, and for pancreatic cancer, in which the INK4a/ARF locus is nearly always altered, are considered.
These data indicate that AdexCACSp16 has the potential to induce p16 gene expression and control pancreas cancer cell proliferation and that the adenovirus p16 expression vector AdexCACSp16 might be a possible method of gene therapy to improve the surgical therapeutic results for pancreas cancer.
We conclude that the occurrence of both pancreatic cancer and melanoma, in the same patient, signals an inherited susceptibility to cancer, and that this predisposition is, in some cases, due to germline CDKN2A mutations.
There was, however, a statistically significant difference in age-adjusted median numbers of nevi (P =.004), and CMM case subjects from CDKN2A families without pancreatic cancer had greater numbers of nevi.
This study shows for the first time that p16(INK4a) alterations can be observed in a considerable number of PanIN1 in chronic pancreatitis tissues not associated with pancreatic cancer.
The effect was specific to pRB depletion because two other human pancreatic cancer cell lines that retained high pRB expression after p16 transfection were resistant to chemotherapy-induced apoptosis.
Activation of the proto-oncogene K-Ras and inactivation of the tumour suppressor gene loci INK4a, p53 and SMAD4 are characteristic for pancreatic cancer.
Germline mutations in the BRCA2, CDKN2A/p16, hMSH2, hMLH1, hPMS1, hPMS2, LKB1/STK1, and PRSS1 genes have been associated with increased risk for pancreatic cancer.