Hereditary cancer syndromes can teach us much about the molecular circuits that are central to the life of a cancer cell. The genes responsible for these syndromes often encode proteins that act at critical points in the pathways controlling fundamental processes such as cell division, differentiation and death. So, any alterations in these genes may give rise to the changes associated with cancer. But cancerous cells must also interact with the surrounding tissue, securing an environment that allows a tumour to grow. Formation of new blood vessels (angiogenesis) seems to be a big hurdle in this regard and yet, until recently, no hereditary cancer gene had been directly linked to this process. But the paper by Maxwell et al. on page 271 of this issue, together with two reports in Science, provides a considerable insight into how one gene, the von Hippel—Lindau (VHL) gene, regulates angiogenesis.
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