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(Ivanhoe Newswire) Could cancer be developing in part because of the loss of one gene?
Researchers who studied the gene in deadly skin and brain cancers believe the answer might be yes. Their research on malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, and glioblastoma multiforme, the worst type of brain cancer, found the gene was missing or mutated in 12 percent and 14 percent of the tumors, respectively.
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The finding is considered especially promising because the same gene, known as PTPRD, has also been found to be missing in other types of cancer, including lung and colon cancers.
In the current study, restoring production of the protein made by the gene effectively stopped the growth of cancer cells in the laboratory and started the process of cell suicide.
Researchers know the protein produced by PTPRD is involved in removing phosphates from other proteins in the cell, and that phosphate build up can foster the development of cancers, but they have yet to identify those other proteins. Future study will be designed to pinpoint those proteins so a treatment can be developed for use in humans.
"Most targeted cancer drugs today work by inhibiting gene products that are overactive in cancer cells," study author Todd Waldman, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center, was quoted as saying. "In this case, it is loss of the PTPRD gene that leads to cancer. Therefore, we are trying to discover the molecules that PTPRDs protein controls, and then we plan to target these downstream molecules with a novel agent."
SOURCE: Cancer Research, published online December 15, 2008
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