p53: at the crossroads of molecular carcinogenesis and molecular epidemiology

The p53 tumor suppressor gene is frequently mutated in human cancer, including squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma of the skin, but is rarely mutated in skin melanoma. The p53 mutation spectrum provides insight into both the etiology of human cancer and the functional regions of the encoded protein that lead to clonal expansion of the p53 mutant cell.