A protein whose overexpression is associated with many forms of cancer also controls the formation of connections between brain cells.
Cyclin E drives cell proliferation and is found mostly in dividing cells, but is also present in the adult brain. Jarrod Marto and Piotr Sicinski at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, and their colleagues reveal that, in non-dividing neurons in the mouse brain, the protein is involved in memory formation. Neurons from mice in which the cyclin E gene was knocked out formed fewer synapses, or connections, and showed reduced synaptic transmission compared with normal mice. The knockout mice also exhibited memory impairments.
The authors show that cyclin E normally inhibits the enzyme Cdk5, which regulates neuronal development.
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A cancer–memory connection. Nature 478, 8 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/478008b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/478008b