The p53 tumor suppressor protein: meeting review.

The p53 protein is finally swimming into focus. This became clear at the Sixth International p53 meeting, which was held in Israel in Tiberias on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in early November 1992. In recent years, the p53 protein has captured the imagination of a broad spectrum of biomedical researchers. Because of its potentially central role in human cancer, there is considerable impetus to understand how it functions normally and how this function is changed in tumor cells. Progress along many lines was reported at the recent meeting, and some of the work presented raised new issues and posed new questions. Unfortunately, although virtually all of the presentations at the meeting were interesting, space does not permit the discussion of each of them in this short meeting review. In summing up the various topics, we divide this commentary into two parts dealing, respectively, with wild-type and mutant forms of p53.