The P16 Status of Tumor Cell Lines Identifies Small Molecule Inhibitors Specific for Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 41
Vol. 5, 4279–4286, December 1999 Clinical Cancer Research 4279 The p16 Status of Tumor Cell Lines Identifies Small Molecule Inhibitors Specific for Cyclin-dependent Kinase 41 Akihito Kubo,2 Kazuhiko Nakagawa,2, 3 CDK4 kinase inhibitors that may selectively induce growth Ravi K. Varma, Nicholas K. Conrad, inhibition of p16-altered tumors. Jin Quan Cheng, Wen-Ching Lee, INTRODUCTION Joseph R. Testa, Bruce E. Johnson, INK4A 4 The p16 gene (also known as CDKN2A) encodes p16 , Frederic J. Kaye, and Michael J. Kelley which inhibits the CDK45:cyclin D and CDK6:cyclin D com- Medicine Branch [A. K., K. N., N. K. C., F. J. K., B. E. J.] and plexes (1). These complexes mediate phosphorylation of the Rb Developmental Therapeutics Program [R. K. V.], National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland 20889; Department of Medical protein and allow cell cycle progression beyond the G1-S-phase Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania checkpoint (2). Alterations of p16 have been described in a wide 19111 [J. Q. C., W-C. L., J. R. T.]; and Department of Medicine, variety of histological types of human cancers including astro- Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710 cytoma, melanoma, leukemia, breast cancer, head and neck [M. J. K.] squamous cell carcinoma, malignant mesothelioma, and lung cancer. Alterations of p16 can occur through homozygous de- ABSTRACT letion, point mutation, and transcriptional suppression associ- ated with hypermethylation in cancer cell lines and primary Loss of p16 functional activity leading to disruption of tumors (reviewed in Refs. 3–5). the p16/cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4:cyclin D/retino- Whereas the Rb gene is inactivated in a narrow range of blastoma pathway is the most common event in human tumor cells, the pattern of mutational inactivation of Rb is tumorigenesis, suggesting that compounds with CDK4 ki- inversely correlated with p16 alterations (6–8), suggesting that nase inhibitory activity may be useful to regulate cancer cell a single defect in the p16/CDK4:cyclin D/Rb pathway is suffi- growth.
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