(Press-News.org) It's hard to believe, but there are similarities between bean sprouts and human cancer.
In bean sprouts, a collection of amino acids known as a protein complex allows them to grow longer in the darkness than in the light. In humans, a similar protein complex called CSN and its subunit CSN6 is now believed to be a cancer-causing gene that impacts activity of another gene (Myc) tied to tumor growth.
Somehow the same mechanisms that result in bigger bean sprouts, also cause cancer metastasis and tumor development.
A study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center led by Mong-Hong Lee, Ph.D., a professor of molecular and cellular oncology, has demonstrated the significance of CSN6 in regulating Myc which may very well open up a new pathway for treating and killing tumors. The study results are published in this month's issue of Nature Communications.
"We have discovered that CSN6 is a strong oncogene that is frequently overexpressed and significantly speeds up tumor growth in many types of cancer," said Lee. "Furthermore, CSN6 also affects the expression of Myc in tumors."
Myc is a proto-oncogene or master cancer gene that spurs tumor growth in a variety of cancers including breast, lung, colon, brain, skin, leukemia, prostate, pancreas, stomach and bladder.
Lee said that the study findings are important because targeting Myc is a challenging task due to its unique protein structure. Even though it has been studied for decades, no effective inhibitor for Myc has been successfully developed. His team's study found that inhibiting CSN6 quickly destabilizes Myc, greatly impairing metastasis and tumor growth.
"This has the potential to unlock a promising and completely new door to effectively eliminating tumors and suppressing cancers that overexpress Myc," said Lee.
INFORMATION:
Li's MD Anderson team included Jian Chen, M.D., Ph.D., Ji-Hyun Shin, Ph.D., Ruiying Zhao, Ph.D., Liem Phan, Ph.D., Hyun-Ho Choi, Ph.D., Edward Wang, Ph.D., Zhongguo Zhou, M.D., Chieh Tseng, Christopher Gully, Ph.D., Guermarie Velazquez-Torres, Ph.D., Enrique Fuentes-Mattei, Ph.D,, Giselle Yeung, Yi Qiao, Pieng-Chieh Chou, Ph.D., Chun-Hui Su, Ph.D., Yun-Chi Hsieh, Ph.D., Kazufumi Ohshiro, Ph.D., and Tattym Shaikenov, Ph.D., all in the department of molecular and cellular oncology; Hua Wang, Ph.D., gastrointestinal medical oncology; Sean Post, Ph.D., genetics; Huamin Wang, M.D., Ph.D., pathology; and Sai-Ching Jim Yeung, M.D., Ph.D., endocrine neoplasia and hormonal disorders, and emergency medicine. Other study participants were at Taichung Veterans General Hospital No. 160, Taichung, Taiwan.
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (R01CA089266, CA 16672); the Fidelity Foundation; and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (KG081048).
Human-wildlife conflict resolution near protected areas critical for tiger survival
Stripe-matching software and individual histories inform decisions on handling conflict-prone big cats
NEW YORK (November 18, 2014)--Researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society and other partners in India are using high-tech solutions to zero in on individual tigers in conflict and relocate them out of harm's way for the benefit of both tigers and people.
In recent tiger-conflict cases involving both a human fatality and the predation of livestock, both occurring near two of ...
Nearly 30,000 people become living kidney donors worldwide each year, and many are young women. Researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), Lawson Health Research Institute and Western University set out to determine if being a living donor has any effect on future pregnancies.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found living kidney donors were more likely to be diagnosed with gestational hypertension (high blood pressure) or preeclampsia than non-donors.
Preeclampsia is a pregnancy complication characterized by high ...
South Asian boys are three times as likely to be overweight compared to their peers, according to a new Women's College Hospital study.
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"Our findings are alarming. From a young age, South Asian boys appear to be on a path towards developing serious health conditions," said Ananya Banerjee, PhD, lead researcher of the study.
Previous work has established that, in Canada, type ...
Recently published research by U.S. Forest Service economist Jeff Prestemon supports the contention that the 2008 Lacey Act Amendment reduced the supply of illegally harvested wood from South America and Asia available for export to the United States.
Using monthly import data from 1989 to 2013, Prestemon, Project Leader of the Forest Service Southern Research Station Forest Economics and Policy unit, applied alternative statistical approaches to evaluate the effects of the 2008 amendment. The Journal of Forest Policy and Economics recently published the results online. ...
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Researchers analyzed the records of more than 3,700 women who had no history of breast cancer, and who had long-term use of calcium channel blocker medications to control their blood pressure. Researchers found only a minimal increase in risk in one study and a 50 percent reduced risk in a second, leading them ...
Inspired perhaps by Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, scientists have recently developed several ways--some simple and some involving new technologies--to hide objects from view. The latest effort, developed at the University of Rochester, not only overcomes some of the limitations of previous devices, but it uses inexpensive, readily available materials in a novel configuration.
"There've been many high tech approaches to cloaking and the basic idea behind these is to take light and have it pass around something as if it isn't there, often using high-tech or exotic ...
Attending to and caring about the emotions of employees and colleagues - that's for wimps, not for tough businesspeople and efficient performers, right? Wrong! An extensive international study has now shown: The "ability to recognize emotions" affects income. The corresponding author of the study is Professor Dr. Gerhard Blickle of the Department of Psychology at the University of Bonn. The results are published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior.
"Although managing employees and dealing with people often involves reading their emotions and determining their moods, ...
A catastrophic landslide, one of the largest known on the surface of the Earth, took place within minutes in southwestern Utah more than 21 million years ago, reports a Kent State University geologist in a paper being to be published in the November issue of the journal Geology.
The Markagunt gravity slide, the size of three Ohio counties, is one of the two largest known continental landslides (larger slides exist on the ocean floors). David Hacker, Ph.D., associate professor of geology at the Trumbull campus, and two colleagues discovered and mapped the scope of the ...
This news release is available in German. Because the skin and its function as a barrier are severely compromised in neurodermatitis patients, a large number of bacterial species are able to multiply - including the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. Many patients have nearly 200-times as many S. aureus bacteria living on their skin as healthy individuals, resulting in frequent infections. Prof. Tilo Biedermann and his team at the Allergology and Dermatology Clinic of Klinikum rechts der Isar and the University of Tübingen have now shown in an animal model how these ...
A plague of "aquatic osteoporosis" is spreading throughout many North American soft-water lakes due to declining calcium levels in the water and hindering the survival of some organisms, says new research from Queen's University.
Researchers from Queen's, working with colleagues from York University and the University of Cambridge, as well as other collaborators, have identified a biological shift in many temperate, soft-water lakes in response to declining calcium levels after prolonged periods of acid rain and timber harvesting. The reduced calcium availability is hindering ...
