Koskinen P J, Alitalo K
Department of Virology, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Semin Cancer Biol. 1993 Feb;4(1):3-12.
Genes of the myc family are apparently the most intensively studied of all nuclear oncogenes. This is because their expression is deregulated in many types of human neoplasia due to chromosomal translocation or gene amplification, and because their exact roles in the regulation of cell proliferation have remained poorly known. However, the recent characterization of several domains in Myc proteins that enable sequence-specific regulation of other growth-related genes, and the identification of proteins interacting with Myc proteins have provided insight into the function(s) of Myc proteins in both normal and neoplastic cells. While the natural target genes for Myc remain to be identified, it has become evident that myc overexpression not only promotes cell proliferation, but also increases the rate of programmed cell death.
myc家族基因显然是所有核癌基因中研究最为深入的。这是因为在许多类型的人类肿瘤中，由于染色体易位或基因扩增，它们的表达失调，还因为它们在细胞增殖调控中的确切作用仍不清楚。然而，最近对Myc蛋白中几个结构域的表征，这些结构域能够对其他生长相关基因进行序列特异性调控，以及与Myc蛋白相互作用的蛋白质的鉴定，为了解Myc蛋白在正常细胞和肿瘤细胞中的功能提供了线索。虽然Myc的天然靶基因仍有待确定，但很明显，myc的过度表达不仅促进细胞增殖，还增加程序性细胞死亡的速率。
