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Soo Park, MD
Soo Park, MD
Posted: Monday, April 7, 2025
Findings of a recent study published in Cancer Discovery identified the pleiotropic factor Survivin as a regulator of stem cells, cell division, and cell death, which play a key role in causing basal cell carcinoma. Adriana Sánchez-Danés, MD, PhD, of the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal, and colleagues used transcriptional profiling in mice to compare the gene expression of skin stem cells and progenitor cells with oncogenes activated.
"We found that Survivin overexpression led to an increase in basal cell clone size at different time points after oncogene expression,” noted the study authors.
Subsequently, in gain- and loss-of-function mouse models, the researchers deleted Survivin, resulting in a significant reduction in tumor burden and a rapid loss of oncogene-expressing cells—approximately 6% of the initially induced clones—compared to 21% in the absence of deletion. Conversely, overexpressing Survivin led to basal cell carcinoma in up to 26% of the clones within 12 weeks.
Survivin has been found to be upregulated in numerous human tumors and plays a role in tumor growth and maintenance. However, this is the first time its involvement in tumor initiation has been identified, noted Sánchez-Danés and colleagues. Furthermore, discovering that it is essential for the transition of preneoplastic lesions into invasive tumors is significant, as it could have therapeutic potential.
Disclosure: The study authors reported no conflicts of interest.
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