Mayo Clinic researchers identify biomarker for smoker's lung cancer
2013-09-20
(Press-News.org) ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have shown that a specific protein pair may be a successful prognostic biomarker for identifying smoking-related lung cancers. The protein — ASCL1 — is associated with increased expression of the RET oncogene, a particular cancer-causing gene called RET. The findings appear in the online issue of the journal Oncogene.
"This is exciting because we've found what we believe to be a 'drugable target' here," says George Vasmatzis, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic molecular medicine researcher and senior author on the study. "It's a clear biomarker for aggressive adenocarcinomas. These are the fast-growing cancer cells found in smokers' lungs."
ASCL1 is known to control neuroendocrine cell development and was previously linked to regulation of thyroid and small cell lung cancer development, but not smoking-related lung cancer. The research also showed that patients with ASCL1 tumors with high levels of the RET oncogene protein did not survive as long as ASCL1 patients with low levels of RET.
When researchers blocked the ASCL1 protein in lung cancer cell lines expressing both genes, the level of RET decreased and tumor growth slowed. This leads researchers to believe this mechanism will be a promising target for potential drugs and a strong candidate for clinical trials.
INFORMATION:The co-authors of the study include Farhad Kosari, Ph.D.; Cristiane Ida, M.D.; Marie Christine Aubry, M.D.; Lin Yang, Ph.D.; Irina Kovtun, Ph.D.; Janet Schaefer Klein; Yan Li, M.D.; Sibel Erdogan; Sandra Tomaszek, M.D.; Stephen Murphy, Ph.D.; Lynn Bolette; Christopher Kolbert; Ping Yang, M.D., Ph.D.; and Dennis Wigle, M.D., Ph.D., all of Mayo Clinic.
The research was supported by a Waterman Biomarker Discovery grant and by the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine.
About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit http://www.mayoclinic.org/about and http://www.mayoclinic.org/news.
Journalists can become a member of the Mayo Clinic News Network for the latest health, science and research news and access to video, audio, text and graphic elements that can be downloaded or embedded.
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2013-09-20
NASA's Aqua satellite passed over a developing low pressure area in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico and captured infrared data on what is now the latest destination for NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storms Sentinel mission. On Sept. 19, NASA's HS3 mission sent an unmanned Global Hawk aircraft to investigate and gather data from low pressure System 95L, located in the Bay of Campeche.
On Sept. 19 at 07:35 UTC/3:35 a.m. EDT, NASA's Aqua satellite passed over System 95L and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument or AIRS instrument that flies aboard it captured infrared ...
2013-09-20
A common songbird may have acquired genes from fellow migrating birds in order to travel greater distances, according to a University of British Columbia study published this week in the journal Evolution.
While most birds either migrate or remain resident in one region, the Audubon's warbler, with habitat ranging from the Pacific Northwest to Mexico, exhibits different behaviours in different locations. The northern populations breed and migrate south for the winter, while southern populations have a tendency to stay put all year long.
Evolutionary biologists have ...
2013-09-20
Toxic metals from the only open pit mine in an estuary system in the United States are widespread in nearby sediment, water and fish and may be affecting marine and coastal animals that feed on them beyond the mine site, a new Dartmouth study finds.
Mining contamination's effects on human health and aquatic and terrestrial wildlife is well documented in the United States, but the Dartmouth study is one of the first to look at the impacts of an open pit mine on an estuarine environment and the coastal marine food web.
The results, which appear in the journal Archives ...
2013-09-20
Higher calorie diets produce twice the rate of weight gain compared to the lower calorie diets that currently are recommended for adolescents hospitalized with anorexia nervosa, according to a study by researchers at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.
The findings will be published in the November issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health along with an accompanying editorial and two supporting studies, challenging the current conservative approach to feeding adolescents with anorexia nervosa during hospitalization for malnutrition.
“These findings are crucial ...
2013-09-20
September 20, 2013, Shenzhen, China – An international team led by South Korea's Personal Genomics Institute and BGI unraveled the first whole genome of a 9-year-old male Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), and compared it with the genomes of other big cats including the white Bengal tiger, lions, and snow leopards. The genomic data from this study provides an invaluable resource for the future studies of big cats and their whole family's conservation. The latest study was published online in Nature Communications.
Despite big cats' reputation for ferocity, these majestic ...
2013-09-20
A new, non-invasive imaging technique, magnetic resonance elastography (MRE), can now help physicians accurately detect fibrosis (scarring) in children with chronic liver disease – a growing problem due in part to increasing obesity rates.
A new study shows that MRE detects such chronic diseases as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is increasingly common in children and teens, affecting an estimated 13 percent of adolescents. NAFLD can lead to progressive liver disease and liver failure. Obesity is a major risk factor.
"Because many pediatrics patients ...
2013-09-20
Why don't trees "bleed" to death when they are injured?
Researchers from Virginia Tech, the Georg-August University of Gottingen, Germany, and the Jackson Laboratory of Bar Harbor, Maine, have discovered how "check valves" in wood cells control sap flow and protect trees when they are injured.
The study, featured on the cover of the September issue of the American Journal of Botany, used a special microscope to reveal how nanostructures help contain damage within microscopic cavities called bordered pits in wood-fiber cells. The pits allow sap to circulate through adjacent ...
2013-09-20
Researchers expect the climate to become warmer in the future and predict that climate change will have a significant impact on the Arctic. How will a warming Arctic affect the polar bears?
The East Greenlandic population of polar bears resides in an area, where the Arctic sea ice is expected to disappear very late. However, the decline in the ice sheet here occurs at a rate of almost 1% per year, one of the highest rates measured in the entire Arctic region.
How does this affect the prey of the polar bears - and, in turn, the polar bears' intake of contaminants? An international ...
2013-09-20
Bethesda, Md. (Sept. 20, 2013)—Asthma is a serious public health problem. An estimated 300 million people worldwide suffer from this sometimes deadly lung disease, a number expected to increase to 400 million by 2025. One well-established risk factor for asthma is having a mother who smoked during her pregnancy. However, researchers recently discovered that smoking can have a lasting legacy. When animal mothers are exposed to nicotine during pregnancy—a proxy for smoking—their grandchildren were also at an increased risk of asthma, even though they were never exposed to ...
2013-09-20
In a landmark discovery, the final piece in the puzzle of understanding how the brain circuitry vital to normal fertility in humans and other mammals operates has been put together by researchers at New Zealand's University of Otago.
Their new findings, which appear in the leading international journal Nature Communications, will be critical to enabling the design of novel therapies for infertile couples as well as new forms of contraception.
The research team, led by Otago neuroscientist Professor Allan Herbison, have discovered the key cellular location of signalling ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Mayo Clinic researchers identify biomarker for smoker's lung cancer
