Feldman Ron J, Sementchenko Victor I, Watson Dennis K
Laboratory of Cancer Genomics, Hollings Cancer Center, Medical University of South Carolina, 86 Jonathan Lucas St. Rm 327, Charleston, SC 29425, USA.
Anticancer Res. 2003 May-Jun;23(3A):2125-31.
The Ets family of transcription factors regulates many biological processes. Within the Ets family are a subset of proteins that have epithelial restricted expression patterns, both in tissues and cell lines. These Epithelial-specific Ets (Ese) factors, cluster into two groups based on the sequence of the Ets DNA binding domain: (i) Ese1, Ese2 and Ese3, and (ii) the more divergent, Pdef. Gene targeting and cell culture studies have demonstrated that Ese factors are important for cellular differentiation. Furthermore, the ability of Ese factors to regulate expression of genes that are markers of differentiation supports this model. Significantly, the expression profile of these Ese factors is altered in epithelial cancers relative to the respective normal tissues. It is likely that this variation in expression affects downstream target genes important for carcinogenesis such as oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Understanding the role of these Ese factors in normal cellular differentiation may elucidate specific mechanisms by which cancer cells can become undifferentiated.
Ets转录因子家族调控许多生物学过程。在Ets家族中，有一部分蛋白质在组织和细胞系中具有上皮细胞特异性表达模式。这些上皮特异性Ets（Ese）因子根据Ets DNA结合域的序列分为两组：（i）Ese1、Ese2和Ese3，以及（ii）差异较大的Pdef。基因靶向和细胞培养研究表明，Ese因子对细胞分化很重要。此外，Ese因子调节作为分化标志物的基因表达的能力支持了这一模型。值得注意的是，相对于各自的正常组织，这些Ese因子的表达谱在上皮癌中发生了改变。这种表达变化可能会影响对致癌作用很重要的下游靶基因，如癌基因和肿瘤抑制基因。了解这些Ese因子在正常细胞分化中的作用可能会阐明癌细胞如何变得未分化的具体机制。
