The use of transgenic mice in unraveling the multistep process of tumorigenesis

Summary The development of cancer has long been perceived to be a complex and multistep process in which a normal cell progresses to a fully malignant tumor cell in a step-by-step fashion. At the molecular level it is believed that these steps correspond to the acquisition of activated oncogenes or alternatively the inactivation of tumor suppressor genes. With the ability to stably transfer foreign genetic information into the germ line of animals a new powerful tool to study oncogenes became available.