p53 — Master and Commander

The gene known variously as p53, TP53, and Trp53 is currently featured in nearly 45,000 published articles listed in PubMed — a remarkable number suggesting that the protein product of this gene, p53, is one of the most important molecules in biology. When it was discovered in 1979, the p53 phosphoprotein (molecular mass, 53 kD) was postulated to have “a crucial role in the modulation of the transformed state.”1 This idea has found support in innumerable studies, including the one reported on by Poeta et al. in this issue of the Journal (pages 2552–2561), in which somatic mutations in TP53 . . .