(Press-News.org) GLOBAL: Australian researchers have used an innovative genome-wide screening approach to identify genes, and their encoded proteins, that play critical roles in the prevention of lymphoma development, revealing new potential treatment targets for these blood cancers.
The study, published in Nature Communications today, has identified a group of proteins known as the GATOR1 complex as essential tumour suppressors.
The GATOR1 complex normally functions as a ‘brake’ on cellular growth by regulating pathways that control cell growth and metabolism.1 When GATOR1 components are lost or defective, this protective mechanism fails, allowing cells to grow uncontrollably.
The research is a collaboration between the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute (ONJCRI), WEHI, and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
The team utilised sophisticated pre-clinical models of aggressive lymphoma to systematically test the function of all known genes in this complex. Their comprehensive screening approach revealed that when any of the GATOR1 genes are lacking, lymphoma development is dramatically accelerated, identifying the GATOR1 complex as a crucial suppressor of blood cancer development.
Co-lead author Dr Margaret Potts said: “The best thing about performing a well-designed CRISPR screen is that you will always find something.
“Our unbiased screening approach looked at all genes, rather than just a subset of them. By not limiting our investigation to known pathways, we found expected as well as unexpected tumour suppressor genes and pathways, such as GATOR1.”
Strikingly, existing drugs that target the same cellular pathways that GATOR1 typically controls were highly effective at slowing the growth of lymphomas in GATOR1-deficient pre-clinical models.
These drugs have previously had limited success in cancer treatment, and this may be because researchers have not been able to identify which patients would respond well to these therapeutics.
“Our paper begins the exploration into this precision medicine opportunity,” shared Dr Potts.
Prof Marco Herold, CEO of ONJCRI, Head of the La Trobe School of Cancer Medicine and senior author of the Nature Communications paper, said:
“Our pre-clinical lymphoma model is driven by high levels of the oncogene MYC, an abnormality that can be found in ~70% of all human cancers. When GATOR1 is lacking, it removes a critical brake that normally slows MYC-driven malignancy.
This exciting discovery provides a new insight into the development and sustained expansion of cancer, which we hope will underpin the development of more effective, targeted treatments for cancer.”
According to the Global Cancer Observatory, there were over 630,000 new cases of lymphoma worldwide in 2022, highlighting the urgent need for better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that drive this disease.2
The research was led by Dr Margaret Potts, Dr Shinsuke Mizutani, and Dr Yexuan Deng, under the supervision of Prof Marco Herold, Prof Andreas Strasser (WEHI), and A/Prof Kristin Brown (Peter Mac).
This work was supported by grants and fellowships from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Cancer Council of Victoria (CCV), Victorian Cancer Agency (VCA), Phenomics Australia, the estate of Anthony Redstone OAM, the University of Melbourne Research Training Scholarship, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Uehara Memorial Foundation and JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up and Public Promoting Association Asano Foundation for Studies on Medicine. This work was made possible by operational infrastructure grants through the Australian Government Independent Research Institute Infrastructure Support Scheme and the Victorian State Government Operational Infrastructure Support Program.
1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41568-018-0074-8
2 https://gco.iarc.who.int/media/globocan/factsheets/cancers/33-hodgkin-lymphoma-fact-sheet.pdf, https://gco.iarc.who.int/media/globocan/factsheets/cancers/34-non-hodgkin-lymphoma-fact-sheet.pdf
ENDS
END
To build a large-scale quantum computer that works, scientists and engineers need to overcome the spontaneous errors that quantum bits, or qubits, create as they operate.
Scientists encode these building blocks of quantum information to suppress errors in other qubits so that a minority can operate in a way that produces useful outcomes.
As the number of useful (or logical) qubits grows, the number of physical qubits required grows even further. As this scales up, the sheer number of qubits needed to create ...
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — If an extraterrestrial intelligence were looking for signs of human communications, when and where should they look? In a new study, researchers at Penn State and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California analyzed when and where human deep space transmissions would be most detectable by an observer outside our solar system and suggest that the patterns they see could be used to guide our own search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).
“Humans are predominantly communicating with the spacecraft and probes we have ...
University of Arizona researchers devised a new method to deliver cancer chemotherapy drugs to pancreatic and breast cancer tumors more effectively and with less damage to healthy tissues than standard forms of chemotherapy. The paper was published today in Nature Cancer.
The research team’s new formulation of the drug paclitaxel may help overcome some common limitations of chemotherapy drugs, setting the stage for a promising new platform for treating cancer and other diseases.
“Paclitaxel is potent and kills cancer cells, but to unleash its full therapeutic potential, we have to address its toxicity,” ...
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers found that the brain’s control center for a lost appendage can persist long after surgical amputation, which stands in stark contrast to longstanding theories about the brain’s ability to reorganize itself, also known as plasticity. Scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their colleagues examined human brain activity before and after arm amputation and found that the loss of a limb does not prompt a large-scale cerebral overhaul. Published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, ...
Heat-stressed Victorian mountain ash forests are thinning fast, turning from carbon sinks to carbon sources, new research reveals.
Published in Nature Communications, the research shows forests will lose a quarter of their trees by 2080 due to global warning.
Mountain ash forests are currently one of Earth’s most effective ecosystems for storing carbon – they store more carbon per hectare than the Amazon.
But researchers say these forests will store less carbon in the future as warming causes more trees to die and decompose.
Scientists from the Universities of Melbourne and ...
A deeper look into carbon flux is now possible — thanks to a deep pool of scientific collaboration. And for once, the spotlight is on Asia.
Led by researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University, a collaborative team of researchers from Japanese institutions has introduced JapanFlux2024, the first large-scale open dataset of its kind for Asia. It details how terrestrial ecosystems across Japan and neighboring regions absorb and release carbon dioxide (CO2), offering a long-awaited foundation for understanding Asia’s role in the global carbon cycle.
Across Asia’s diverse landscapes—from ...
LGBTQIA+ college students living in conservative US states have reported far worse mental health than their counterparts in more liberal areas in a national study.
Analysis of a survey—carried out prior to the latest Republican term—uncovered this group, who fell within an age bracket of 18 to 25, were considerably more likely to describe themselves as being anxious, depressed, and suicidal.
The new report, published today in the Journal of American College Health, also revealed LGBTQIA+ students in conservative states were also more likely to feel afraid that something ...
With climate change and more frequent extreme weather events, researchers predict that global yields of important crops like maize, rice, and soybeans could decline by 12 to 20% by the end of the century. To prepare, plant scientists are hoping to find ways to improve yields and grow hardier varieties of these crops. New insights into the genetic makeup of wild varieties of common crops show how domestication has changed crop traits over time and propose a new cultivation method to improve genetic diversity. The research was shared in a paper published in Life on July 11.
“While domesticated species have originally been bred by cultivating wild species, the resulting reduction in genetic ...
Introducing Sustainable Carbon Materials—a new peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to advancing fundamental and applied research on carbon-based materials!
As a multidisciplinary global platform, we foster innovation in this rapidly expanding field by publishing high-impact reviews, original research, rapid reports, perspectives, commentaries, and correspondence.
Broad Scope Includes:
✅ Synthesis & characterization of graphene, nanotubes, fullerenes & more
✅ Physical/chemical properties for electronics, optics, and spintronics
✅ Energy applications (batteries, ...
RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- When companies are acquired, conventional wisdom suggests that employee nostalgia for their pre-buyout days is a problem to be eliminated so workers can more quickly adapt to the new owners’ ways of doing business.
A new study published in the journal Strategic Organization led by UC Riverside School of Business professors Boris Maciejovsky and Jerayr Haleblian suggests this thinking is wrong—especially when the new owners want to retain the most talented, productive, and informed workers.
Nostalgia, they found, serves as a comforting and stabilizing force during takeover periods, when employees feel vulnerable, fear ...
