A concentration- and time-dependent cell cycle blockade at G2/M phase was observed in human colon cancer cells (HCT-116) following 11,11'-dideoxyverticillin treatment and was associated with marked increases in levels of p53, phospho-p53(ser20) and phospho-Chk2(Thr 68).
Thus, it seems that the clinical expression of CHEK2 variant alleles on prostate and colon cancer risk may be restricted to individuals with a specific genotype (VV) of the p27 gene.
Whereas among Li-Fraumeni syndrome families mutations of Chk2 or p53 occur in a mutually exclusive manner, we document that the colon cancer cell line HCT-15 concomitantly lacks functions of both Chk2 and p53, the latter demonstrated by a non-invasive reporter assay monitoring p53-dependent transactivation in live cells.