Answer
The gene p53 codes for a protein--tumor protein p53 (Tp53)-- which controls cell division and cell death. Mutations on the p53 gene can permit several types of tumors to grow in various tissue -- a syndrome labelled Li-Fraumeni syndrome.
Work Step by Step
Inactivation of functions of normal p53 gene due to alteration or mutation has been found to promote malignancy. This is so because Tp53 has critical roles in suppressing the development and progression of malignancies.
Cancer therapies have been devised to take advantage of this role of Tp53 by targeting the p53 gene. One way of administering this therapy is through correcting the mutant gene by using adenoviruses to deliver complimentary DNA sequences to the mutant gene. The engineered adenoviruses are injected directly into the cancer cells; there they inhibit mutant p53 activities . The results are disruption of cell cycling and apoptosis in the p53 inactivated cells. But the engineered adenoviruses ( with complementary p53 sequence) are not taken up by normal non-tumorous cells, which remain undamaged.
