Kalejs Martins, Erenpreisa Jekaterina
Biomedical Research and Study Centre of the Latvian University, Riga, Latvia.
Cancer Cell Int. 2005 Feb 16;5(1):4. doi: 10.1186/1475-2867-5-4.
Genes expressed both in normal testis and in malignancies (Cancer/ Testis associated genes - CTA) have become the most extensively studied antigen group in the field of tumour immunology. Despite this, many fundamentally important questions remain unanswered: what is the connection between germ-cell specific genes and tumours? Is the expression of these genes yet another proof for the importance of genome destabilisation in the process of tumorigenesis?, or maybe activation of these genes is not quite random but instead related to some programme giving tumours a survival advantage?This review collates most of the recent information available about CTAs expression, function, and regulation. The data suggests a programme related to ontogenesis, mostly to gametogenesis. In the "brain-storming" part, facts in conflict with the hypothesis of random CTA gene activation are discussed. We propose a programme borrowed from organisms phylogenetically much older than humans, which existed before the differentiation of sexes. It is a programme that has served as a life cycle with prominent ploidy changes, and from which, as we know, the germ-cell ploidy cycle - meiosis - has evolved. Further work may show whether this hypothesis can lead to a novel anti-tumour strategy.
在正常睾丸组织和恶性肿瘤中均有表达的基因（癌/睾丸相关基因 - CTA）已成为肿瘤免疫学领域研究最为广泛的抗原组。尽管如此，许多至关重要的问题仍未得到解答：生殖细胞特异性基因与肿瘤之间有何联系？这些基因的表达是否是基因组不稳定在肿瘤发生过程中重要性的又一证据？或者，这些基因的激活并非完全随机，而是与某种赋予肿瘤生存优势的程序相关？本综述整理了有关CTA表达、功能及调控的大部分最新信息。数据表明存在一个与个体发育相关的程序，主要与配子发生有关。在“头脑风暴”部分，讨论了与CTA基因随机激活假说相矛盾的事实。我们提出了一个从系统发育上比人类古老得多的生物体借用的程序，它在性别分化之前就已存在。这是一个作为具有显著倍性变化的生命周期发挥作用的程序，我们知道，生殖细胞倍性周期——减数分裂——就是从这个程序进化而来的。进一步的研究可能会表明这一假说是否能带来一种新的抗肿瘤策略。
