A reason why the ERBB2 gene is amplified and not mutated in breast cancer

doi:10.1186/1475-2867-9-5

Cancer Cell International

Volume 9

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Hypothesis

A reason why the ERBB2 gene is amplified and not mutated in breast cancer

Daniel Birnbaum¹ , Fabrice Sircoulomb¹^,2 and Jean Imbert²^,3

¹Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Marseille, UMR891 Inserm and Institut Paoli-Calmettes, Marseille, F-13009, France

²Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, Cedex 09, F-13288, France

³U928 Inserm, TAGC, Marseille-Luminy, France

author email corresponding author email

Cancer Cell International 2009, 9:5doi:10.1186/1475-2867-9-5


Published:	18 February 2009

Abstract

Alterations of receptor-type tyrosine kinases (RTK) are frequent in human cancers. They can result from translocation, mutation or amplification. The ERBB2 RTK is encoded by a gene that is amplified in about 20% breast cancers. The question is: why is this RTK specifically subjected to this type of alteration? We propose that ERBB2 gene amplification is used to overcome repression of its expression by sequence-specific transcription factors.