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Nature Medicine 13, 404 - 406 (2007)
doi:10.1038/nm0407-404

Providing AID to p53 mutagenesis

Shigeo Takaishi1 & Timothy C Wang1

  1. The authors are in the Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases, Department of Medicine, Columbia University, College of Physicians & Surgeons, Irving Cancer Research Center, 1130 St. Nicholas Avenue, Room 925, New York, New York 10032, USA. e-mail: tcw21@columbia.edu

Activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID), which mediates antibody diversification, is now implicated as an inducer of p53 mutagenesis in cancer cells (pages 470–476).

The p53 tumor suppressor gene (also known as TP53) has been called the 'guardian of the genome' or the 'cellular gatekeeper'; it is the most commonly known mutated gene in human cancer cells. Mutations of this gene have been detected in about half of all cancers, including those arising from a wide spectrum of tissues1.