Wilms' tumor (WT1) protein is one of the potent tumor antigens inducing immunological response in mouse and human, because WT1 is over expressed in many types of leukemia and various kinds of solid tumors.
The Wilms' tumor 1 (WT1) gene is overexpressed in leukemia and various types of solid tumor, such as lung and colorectal cancer, and plays an oncogenic role in their tumorigenesis.
Peptides from the Wilms Tumor 1 transcription factor (WT1), upregulated in many hematopoetic and solid tumors, can be recognized by T cells and numerous efforts are underway to engineer WT1-based cancer vaccines.
The WT1 gene is highly expressed in leukemia and various types of solid tumors, whereas WT1 is a tumor marker convenient for the detection of minimal residual disease of leukemia.
The WT1 gene exerts an oncogenic function rather than a tumor-suppressor gene function in solid tumors as well as leukemias, and the WT1 gene product is an attractive tumor antigen capable of eliciting cytotoxic T lymphocytes against WT1-expressing tumors.
These results indicated that the WT1 gene plays an essential role in the growth of solid tumors and performs an oncogenic rather than a tumor-suppressor gene function.