Onc genes and other new targets for cancer chemotherapy

Recent advances in molecular biology have raised the hope that understanding of human cancer might progress rapidly and that improvements in therapy might result (Bishop 1983a, b; Busch 1962; Busch 1976; Duesberg 1983). With the development of gene cloning, DNA sequence analysis and improved hybridization methods, it became possible to evaluate whether cancer results from alteration in gene dosage, point or multiple mutation of genes, translocations, deletions, insertions, inversions, cis or trans altered promoters, amplification, and a variety of other genetic factors, including enhancer elements that alter rates of readouts of particular mRNA species. "Onc genes" are under intensive study because they offer manageable probes for evaluation of these various possibilities and also because the study of their cellular analogs may further understanding of the molecular biology of normal fetal and malignant cells. Despite the excessive enthusiasm of some proponents of this field and the negativism of its critics (Bishop 1983 a, b; Duesberg 1983), it is clear that analytical tools and new information will be of value in further studies on experimental cancer, regardless of whether cellular oncogenes (c-onc genes) have anything to do with human cancer or not. In the meantime, studies on enzymes, proteins and epitopes involved in growth processes, have opened new avenues for inhibition of human cancer by quantitative reduction of biosynthetic reactions.