Tumor protein p53 (TP53) - The anti-cancer watchdog

The p53 protein is encoded by the TP53 gene and has important functions to protect against cancer and p53 expression is involved in control of cell cycle progression, DNA-repair and apoptosis. Mutations in the TP63 gene will cause severe reduction in tumor suppression activity, and this is reflected by studies showing that more than half of all tumors contain display mutations or silencing of TP53.