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  • Milestones
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Milestone 18

Teaming up for transformation

Oncogene cooperation

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 6, pages S18–S19 (2006)Cite this article

Weinberg and colleagues examined the effect of expressing two recently identified oncogenes — an activated variant of Harvey RAS1, EJ RAS (see Milestone 17), and either a viral or a mammalian clone of Myc — in primary rat embryonic fibroblasts (REFs). They found that, despite its capacity to transform rodent cell lines, EJ RAS could not transform REFs. These cells initially proliferated, but then underwent crisis and arrest. EJ RAS-expressing REFs were also unable to form tumours in immunocompromised mice. However, REFs expressing Myc and RAS grew rapidly as foci that were able to establish long-term cultures when passaged in vitro, and could form tumours in mice. These tumours were not metastatic, implying that beyond MYC and RAS cooperation, further oncogenic events might be required to produce an invasive tumour (although we now know that tumours seeded subcutaneously in mice often do not metastasize). Similar results were found by Ruley using adenoviral E1A, polyoma virus middle T antigen and T24 Harvey RAS expressed in baby rat kidney cells.

Oncogene cooperation was also studied in avian erythroid progenitor cells by Thomas Graf and colleagues. In 1986, they showed that the non-transforming viral gene v-erbA could cooperate both in vitro and in vivo with v-src, v-Ha-ras and v-erbB

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References

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  1. Senior Editor, Nature Reviews Cancer,

    Nicola McCarthy

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  1. Nicola McCarthy
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McCarthy, N. Teaming up for transformation. Nat Rev Cancer 6 (Suppl 1), S18–S19 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc1860

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