The DCC Protein -- NEURAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE MALIGNANT PROCESS

Kimberly M. Rieger-Christ, Karina L. Brierley and Michael A. Reale

Department of Internal Medicine/Oncology, Yale School of Medicine/West Haven Veterans Administration Medical Center, 333 Cedar St., P.O. Box 208032, New Haven, CT 06520-8032

Received 8/25/97 Accepted 9/5/97

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Abstract

2. Introduction

3. DCC and Development

3.1. DCC guides axonal migrations

3.2 DCC guides cell migrations

3.3. Summary

4. DCC and Cancer

4.1. 18q Allelic loss and DCC expression studies

4.2. Experimental approaches

4.3. Summary

5. Perspective

6. Acknowledgments

7. References

5. PERSPECTIVE

The importance of DCC in the migration of cells and their processes during neural development and cellular differentiation is evident. While reduction/loss of DCC expression appears to be a later event in the malignant process and is associated with disease dissemination, a definitive role for DCC as an inhibitor of the malignant process is less clear. In light of the frequent crosstalk between developmental studies and cancer biology (30,31,95), it is intriguing to speculate that the developmental role of DCC in cell/cell process pathfinding indicates a similar role in the analogous process of tumor dissemination.