This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Collier, L. S. Articles by Largaespada, D. A. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Collier, L. S. Articles by Largaespada, D. A. Related Collections Cellular Pathobiology Cellular Pathobiology: Cancer Genes and Genomics

Hopping around the Tumor Genome: Transposons for Cancer Gene Discovery

Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for Transposon Research, The Cancer Center, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Requests for reprints: David A. Largaespada, Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 6-160 Jackson Hall, 321 Church Street Southeast, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Phone: 612-626-4979; E-mail: larga002{at}umn.edu.

Retroviruses are powerful insertional somatic mutagens that have been used for many landmark discoveries of cancer genes in model organisms. However, their use as a cancer gene discovery tool has been limited to only a few tissues, mainly the hematopoietic system and mammary gland. Recently, the Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon system was shown to be useful for random somatic cell mutagenesis in mice, allowing the induction or acceleration of tumor formation both in the hematopoietic system and in sarcomas. In these tumors, SB transposons repeatedly "tagged" specific genes, both known and new cancer genes. These results indicate that the SB system has great potential both for generating specific mouse models of human cancer and for cancer gene discovery in a wide variety of tissues.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. de Ridder, J. Kool, A. Uren, J. Bot, L. Wessels, and M. Reinders Co-occurrence analysis of insertional mutagenesis data reveals cooperating oncogenes Bioinformatics, July 1, 2007; 23(13): i133 - i141. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. J. Dupuy Cancer Gene Discovery Using the Sleeping Beauty Transposon Am. Assoc. Cancer Res. Educ. Book, April 14, 2007; 2007(1): 221 - 224. [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. C.-Y. Wu, Y.-J. J. Meir, C. J. Coates, A. M. Handler, P. Pelczar, S. Moisyadi, and J. M. Kaminski From the Cover: piggyBac is a flexible and highly active transposon as compared to Sleeping Beauty, Tol2, and Mos1 in mammalian cells PNAS, October 10, 2006; 103(41): 15008 - 15013. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]