RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Stayin' Alive JF Science's STKE JO Sci. STKE FD American Association for the Advancement of Science SP tw304 OP tw304 DO 10.1126/stke.2472004tw304 VO 2004 IS 247 YR 2004 UL http://stke.sciencemag.org/content/2004/247/tw304.abstract AB About 10% of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) experience dramatic tumor regression when treated with gefitinib (Iressa), a recently approved drug that inhibits the kinase activity of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Tumors that respond to gefitinib harbor somatic mutations in the EGFR kinase domain. Sordella et al. now show that these mutant EGFRs activate a signaling pathway that keeps the tumor cells alive even when they are treated with agents that induce cell death, such as conventional chemotherapeutic drugs. The authors speculate that NSCLCs expressing the mutant EGFRs may become fully dependent on this cell survival pathway, which could explain, at least in part, their extreme sensitivity to gefitinib. R. Sordella, D. W. Bell, D. A. Haber, J. Settleman, Gefitinib-sensitizing EGFR mutations in lung cancer activate anti-apoptotic pathways. Science 305, 1163-1167 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text]