According to BBC news, researchers from Mayo Clinic may have found a way to not only stop the spread of cancerous cells, but also to revert them to their former selves. They do this by triggering production of a protein called PLEKHA7 which breaks the cell bonds. Researchers found that this key signaling process that commands cells to stop multiplying does not work in cancer cells. When the adhesion is disrupted through cancer cells, the miRNAs are not regulated in the normal way and cells grow uncontrollably.
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Even though the technique has only been tested on human cells in the lab, researchers hope it can one day turn off cancer growths and restore normal cells without resorting to surgery or chemotherapy. When this protein was lost, the miRNAs was misregulated and the cells became oncogenic.
Lead author Antonis Kourtidis added: “The study brings together two so-far unrelated research fields – cell-to-cell adhesion and miRNA biology – to resolve a long-standing problem about the role of adhesion proteins in cell behaviour that was baffling scientists”.
These adhesion proteins are important for normal tissue formation, and for a long time were thought to be tumor suppressors.
Aside from their immediate relevance to the K-Ras molecular switch in cancer, the findings show a new way for cells to use electrical charges in order to manipulate several signaling pathways, which can be directly relevant to the nervous system. But since both molecules are in tumour cells and vital for tumour growth, the team questioned their assumptions about the two proteins. “Normal cells touch each other and form junctions, then they shut down proliferation”.
“We believe that loss of the apical PLEKHA7-microprocessor complex is an early and somewhat universal event in cancer”, asserted Dr. Anastasiadis.
“We have looked at human tumour cells and found that the brake is missing in vast majority of these cancers”, Dr Anastasiadis said.
The finding can help develop treatments for some of the most lethal types of cancer including pancreatic, colon and lung, which are characterised by uncontrolled cell growth caused by breakdowns in cell signalling cascades, researchers said.
The code is actually a new strategy got cancer therapy.
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The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health grants; the Florida Department of Health, Bankhead-Coley grants; the Breast Cancer Research Foundation; the Swiss Cancer League; and the Jay and Deanie Stein Career Development Award for Cancer Research at Mayo Clinic.
