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Cell Cycle Control in Pancreatic Cancer Pathogenesis

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Pancreatic Cancer

Abstract:

All multicellular organisms arise from the division of a single cell. Thus, to generate a complex living organism, these cell divisions must be performed with extremely high fidelity and reproducibility during the development of the organism. Furthermore, in the mature, or adult, organism, tissue and organismal homeostasis must be maintained, and this requires the coordination of cell division with cell growth and cell death. These needs have led to the evolution of a cell replication process, known as the cell division cycle, that is highly conserved among all eukaryotes from simple single cellular organisms such as budding yeast to complex mammals such as humans.

Pioneering studies by Lee Hartwell, performed in budding yeast, laid the groundwork for the identification and characterization of the key positive and negative regulators of this process. Given the importance of the regulation of the cell division cycle and its high fidelity execution to organismal homeostasis, it is unsurprising that alteration of the cell cycle is a hallmark feature of human malignancies. Importantly, many of the genes encoding key regulators of the cell cycle are mutated in both sporadic and hereditary forms of cancer including pancreatic cancers.

This chapter will provide an overview of the cell division cycle, as well as describe several of the key regulatory mechanisms that promote its high fidelity. The chapter will then illustrate how the cell cycle is altered in cancer cells, and how this contributes to cancer pathogenesis. Finally, the chapter will focus on pancreatic cancer, with an emphasis on understanding how many of the common genetic alterations identified in this tumor type contribute to dysregulation of the cell division cycle and to the malignant phenotype in this disease.

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Acknowledgments

The author thanks Kirsten A. Hubbard for editorial assistance with the chapter, and Sara K. Evans for providing the figures. Work in the author’s lab is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

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  1. University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

    Brian Lewis

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Lewis, B. (2010). Cell Cycle Control in Pancreatic Cancer Pathogenesis. In: Pancreatic Cancer. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-77498-5_13

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