A Mechanism of Cyclin D1 Action Encoded in the Patterns of Gene Expression in Human Cancer

Here we describe how patterns of gene expression in human tumors have been deconvoluted to reveal a mechanism of action for the cyclin D1 oncogene. Computational analysis of the expression patterns of thousands of genes across hundreds of tumor specimens suggested that a transcription factor, C/EBPβ/Nf-Il6, participates in the consequences of cyclin D1 overexpression. Functional analyses confirmed the involvement of C/EBPβ in the regulation of genes affected by cyclin D1 and established this protein as an indispensable effector of a potentially important facet of cyclin D1 biology. This work demonstrates that tumor gene expression databases can be used to study the function of a human oncogene in situ.