EGFR Mutations and Lung Cancer 英文参考文献.docVIP

Open access, freely available online Synopses of Research Articles Casting Doubt on the Role of Mitochondria in Tumorigenesis DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020373 Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has been intensively studied over the past two decades, and point mutations, more commonly known as deletions, of this DNA are known to be involved in several syndromes. Unlike nuclear DNA, with 46 chromosomes, half from each parent, mtDNA is just one piece of genome of which there are many copies, but all copies come only from the mother. Mitochondrial disease syndromes, such as MELAS, have a range of different clinical manifestations depending on how many copies of the abnormal mtDNA are present in affected cells. There are several international resources of mtDNA sequences. From these sequences, it has been possible to show that different population groups have different patterns of substitutions in the mtDNA—so-called haplogroups; this information has been used, for example, in the investigation of the origin and migration patterns of human populations, and some investigators have even suggested that it could be used to trace back to earliest human history the founding mothers of humanity. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020373.g001 The Role of Mitochondria in Tumorigenesis is not yet clear More recently, however, attention has turned to the question of whether mtDNA is involved in tumor formation. However, deciding whether mutations are harmful or innocuous has been dif?cult. One concern is that isolation of mtDNA from any tissue is not simple, and may be particularly dif?cult from tumor samples, which are often contaminated with exogenous DNA. In a hard-hitting paper, Antonio Salas and colleagues cast more doubt over a causal role for mtDNA alterations in tumors; they have now reassessed many of the studies that have examined the role of mtDNA in tumorigenesis, and concluded that much of the data are at best questionable.The group used a phylogenetic approach to analyze the re