Md. Previous epidemiologic data had shown that the HMG I-C gene is defective in many mesenchymal tumors. About 25 percent of the transgenic mice develop tumors, while control mice, or normal mice, showed no evidence of tumor formation. The researchers also found that no tumors formed in other tissues of the body, just in fat tissue. However, other researchers in Ono's group have found that the HMG I-C gene also may contribute to human retinoblastomas, a tumor of the eye. Previous research done at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey has shown that the HMG I-C gene appears to help mice store fat.
Transgenic mice lacking the gene can eat voraciously without getting fat.
The Ono team has performed complementary experiments by overexpressing the gene, and noted both obesity and tumor growth. Ono's research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Lucille P. Markey Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Research to Prevent Blindness Foundation, America. The Schepens Eye Research Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, is the largest independent eye research center in the nation, both in size of faculty and support from the National Eye Institute. It has a renowned faculty of more than 60 scientists, including immunologists, molecular and cell biologists and physicists who investigate cures for blinding eye diseases and aids for victims of low vision. Many diagnostic techniques and devices, surgical methods and medications related to eye diseases were developed by Institute faculty.