Pathology Outlines

Stains
Beclin1 (Beclin-1)

Author: Nat Pernick, M.D. (see Authors page)

Revised: 23 October 2015, last major update August 2015

Copyright: (c) 2003-2015, PathologyOutlines.com, Inc.

PubMed Search: beclin1

Table of Contents

Cite this page: Beclin1. PathologyOutlines.com website. http://www.pathologyoutlines.com/topic/stainsbeclin1.html. Accessed July 12th, 2017.

Definition / general

Also known as autophagy-related gene 6 (Atg6)
60kDa coiled coil protein that binds with bcl2 (Am J Cancer Res 2012;2:214)
Tumor suppressor on #17q21; frequently monoallelically lost in human cancers
Beclin1 and class III phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), its binding partner, are required to initiate formation of autophagosome in autophagy

Clinical features

Overexpressed in many human cancers; deleted in other cancers
Reduced Beclin1 expression is poor prognostic factor: gastric carcinoma (Autophagy 2012;8:389), lymphoma (Mod Pathol 2010;23:937), pulmonary squamous cell and adenocarcinoma (Hum Pathol 2012;43:62)
Reduced Beclin1 expression is favorable progostic factor: advanced colorectal cancer treated with cetuximab-containing chemotherapy (World J Gastroenterol 2011;17:4779), uveal melanoma (Mod Pathol 2011;24:1036)
Herpesviruses, HIV and influenza A virus bind to Beclin1 to block autophagosome fusion with lyososomes (Viruses 2011;3:1166, J Virol 2012;86:2571)

Diagrams / tables