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Nature Cell Biology 8, 785 - 786 (2006)
doi:10.1038/ncb0806-785

Eph tumour suppression: the dark side of Gleevec

Jean Y. J. Wang1

  1. Jean Y. H. Wang is in the Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Medicine, Moores Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, La Jolla, CA 92093-0820, USA. e-mail: jywang@ucsd.edu


Gleevec inhibits the oncogenic BCR–ABL tyrosine kinase in chronic myelogenous leukaemia and thus safely and effectively suppresses this human cancer. Gleevec also inhibits the normal cellular ABL, a downstream effector of the Eph-receptors, which mediate repulsive cell–cell interactions to regulate axon guidance, angiogenesis and epithelial homeostasis. New work shows that Eph-dependent tumour suppression requires ABL and is blocked by Gleevec, thus cautioning against the indiscriminate use of this drug in cancer therapy.

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