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Gene has role in aging, cancer prevention: US study Mice genetically engineered to have an overactive version of the gene, called p53, got fewer tumors, but they also died younger than normal mice, the researchers said. "Aging and tumor suppression may be opposite sides of the same coin," Lawrence Donehower of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who led the study, said in a telephone interview. The p53 gene is known to be involved in a range of cancers and stops a cell from dividing. When it gets damaged, a cell can divide uncontrollably, growing into a tumor. Donehower and colleagues made mice whose p53 gene was overactive. As might be expected, the mice got fewer tumors than normal mice. But there was a price. The mutant mice lived to be only 96 weeks old, as compared to 118 weeks for normal mice of the same breed, Donehower and colleagues reported in this week's issue of the science journal Nature. The mutants also looked old + they were thin and had less muscle mass, they developed hunched backs, brittle bones and any wounds they had healed slowly. "These mutant mice show a lot of reduced cells in their organs + the organs become smaller with age," Donehower said. He said he believed p53 may be involved in the activity of stem cells, the body's master cells that are the source of replacement cells and tissues. "P53 may become active in stem cells and may reduce division later in life," he said. "We think as the animals get older, more aggressive p53 in the mice may prevent the stem cells from replenishing." So as the p53 gene stops cells from becoming cancerous, as a side-effect it may also stop new cells from being born, Donehower said. More experiments must be done to pin this down, but it showed an intriguing role for p53, Donehower said. Other experts said the implications could mean bad news for young cancer patients. "These results raise the disturbing possibility that the genotoxic agents used to treat cancer in young individuals might accelerate age-related disorders later on," Gerardo Ferbeyre of the Universite de Montreal in Canada, and Scott Lowe of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York wrote in a commentary. Donehower said he doubted that. "It makes a certain amount of sense but cancer treatments are so transient, so short term, (that) I don't think they are going to have any major effects," he said.
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