Early overexpression of cyclin D1 protein in mouse skin carcinogenesis

Abnormal expression of cell-cycle regulatory proteins, particularly cyclin D1, has been described in human cancers. However, there are few reports of this kind in experimental carcinogenesis models, which provide a framework to analyze the importance of those alterations in early cancer development. Previous studies from our laboratory showed that cyclin D1 mRNA was overexpressed in skin tumors generated in SENCAR mice by a two-stage carcinogenesis protocol. In the study presented here, immunoprecipitation of fresh tumor samples confirmed the overexpression of cyclin D1 protein. We also developed an immunohistochemical technique to determine which cells in the lesions overexpressed the cyclin and the timing of deregulation during cancer development. Surprisingly, we found that all premalignant lesions, including small incipient papillomas, overexpressed cyclin D1, whereas normal and hyperproliferative skin were negative. Nuclear immunostaining was detected only in the proliferative compartments of the tumors and showed an apparent cell-cycle-related variation. These results provide evidence for a role of cyclin D1 overexpression in mouse skin carcinogenesis and support the use of this model as an alternative to in vitro studies to help understand the involvement of cyclin deregulation in cancer development.