Molecular pathways involved in the regulation of pituitary tumor oncogenesis and senescence

FUERTES, M; NIETO, L; ATTORRESI, A; SAPOCHNIK, M; ROSMINO, J; STALLA, G K; HERBSTEIN, F; SENIN, S; ARZT, E

Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires

Simposio; Frontiers in Biosciences 3; 2018

Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires (IBioBA) - CONICET - Partner Institute of the Max Planck Society

Pituitary tumors derive from normal endocrine cells or precursors of them and form endocrine active or inactive adenomas. Despite considerable progress, the pathogenesis of pituitary adenomas is still not clear. Pituitary tumors are of monoclonal origin which means that they derive from a single transformed cell. Mutation in oncogenes and/or tumor suppressors are expected to initiate this process. Increased levels of the proto-oncogene Pituitary tumor transforming gene (PTTG) have been repeatedly reported with a critical role in pituitary tumorigenesis, however no mutations, epigenetic modifications or other mechanisms that deregulate its expression have not been found.Despite their high abundance, very rarely these tumors progress to a malignant stage. Senescence has been proposed as one of the mechanisms underlying this benign behavior, although the mechanism is still unknown. We propose that IL-6 which is produced by the tumoral cells participates in an autocrine senesce loop.