Flies in the colon.

Abstract

Any regular reader of this column will have noticed a preoccupation with developmental pathology. This is a personal interest, but depends on a conviction that the mechanisms of development, properly understood, are central to the development of most degenerative disease and of much other pathology. The latest surprise is about carcinoma of the colon. The Adenomatous Polyposis Coli (APC) tumour suppressor gene is known to be affected in many families who have a high incidence of carcinoma of the colon and to show truncation mutations in about 80% of colonic adenomas and carcinomas in sporadic cases. The tumour suppressor function of the gene depends on its ability to promote the degradation of β ‐catenin, a protein that functions in intercellular junctions in epithelium. What has this to do with wingless fruit flies? It's all to do with the …