A tale of TALE, PREP1, PBX1, and MEIS1: Interconnections and competition in cancer.

We report the latest structural information on PREP1 tumor suppressor, the specific "oncogene" and "tumor suppressive" signatures of MEIS1 and PREP1, the molecular rules regulating PREP1 and MEIS1 binding to DNA, and how these can change depending on the interaction with PBX1, cell-type, neoplastic transformation, and intracellular concentration. As both PREP1 and MEIS1 interact with PBX1 they functionally compete with each other. PREP1, PBX1, and MEIS1 TALE-class homeodomain transcription factors act in an interdependent and integrated way in experimental tumorigenesis.

Disease modeling in zebrafish: cancer and immune responses--a report on a workshop held in Spoleto, Italy, July 20-22, 2009.

The growing interest in using zebrafish for genetic and functional dissection of malignancy and infection was highlighted by the second international workshop on Zebrafish Models of Cancer and the Immune Response in Spoleto, Italy (July 20-22, 2009). The overarching theme of the state-of-the-art reports featured the unique suitability of zebrafish for in vivo monitoring of fundamental biologic and pathologic processes. For example, in vivo imaging was employed for the first demonstration of direct development of hematopoietic stem cells from hemogenic epithelium and for visualization of T-cell homing and interaction with thymic epithelial cells.

Global repression of cancer gene expression in a zebrafish model of melanoma is linked to epigenetic regulation.

We have established a model of melanoma progression in zebrafish through the generation of transgenic lines specifically expressing oncogenic human HRAS in the melanocytic lineage. In these tumors we have carried out quantitative expression analysis of several putative cancer genes, from known and predicted cancer gene lists. In particular, we analyzed 39 out of 101 putative cancer genes identified with a bioinformatics approach and selected for the low frequency of duplication and the high connectivity in protein networks.