N. Rampino, H. Yamamoto, Y. Ionov, Y. Li, H. Sawai, J.C. Reed, M. Perucho, "Somatic frameshift mutations in the BAX gene in colon cancers of the microsatellite mutator phenotype," Science, 275:967-9, Feb. 14, 1997. (Cited in more than 218 papers since publication)
Comments by Manuel Perucho, director of the oncogene and tumor suppressor gene program at the Burnham Institute, La Jolla, Calif., and Nicholas Rampino, associate professor at the Burnham Institute
Manuel Perucho Though healthy cells divide with high fidelity, mutations are the hallmark of cancer cells. This may explain the boundless capability of cancer cells to continually grow and evade the stopgaps of human defenses. The mutator phenotype hypothesis attributes this phenomenon to an increasing rate of errors in DNA replication as a tumor grows.1 According to this theory genes encoding proteins such as DNA polymerases and DNA repair enzymes, molecules that play an important role in replication, may ...
