Thank the plants...A novel method to treat cancer

Source: Science Daily

Hey guys… I just read this interesting article… here you go…

Researchers have found out a novel way to treating cancer in humans by performing experiments in plants.

Sounds funny? I’ll clear it in a jiffy.

Basically, they have found out how the plant hormone auxin interacts with the TIR1 receptor and this TIR1 receptor has structural similarities to human enzymes that have been implicated in cancer. This interaction could prove useful for scientists to develop drugs against these proteins.

TIR1 belongs to the family of ubiquitin ligases. These are required for regulation of cell growth and proliferation. It works by the process of ubiquitination. This process involves the addition of ubiquitin molecules onto proteins which in turns marks the protein to some altered function.

Researchers have for long been breaking their heads as to how to design a drug to counter these ubiquitin ligases. Now with this discovery, the road will be much clearer now.

Researchers now say that diseases like Parkinson’s disease, colon and breast cancer in which ubiquitin ligases have been playing a major role could be treated in a much better manner now that the method to tackle these ligases has been found.

A new connection between sugars and cancer

Source: Huliq.com

The second post for the day…

Researchers have found out new connection between sugars and cancers. Basically, a cell responds to stimuli with the help of receptors present on the surface. What the researchers at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute have found out is that these receptors are a combination of proteins and some sugars and that these sugars help in regulating the work of the receptor.

This also involves how long a receptor was available to interact with the external stimuli which are basically molecules like growth factors, etc…

Where does cancer come in the picture? When the sugars don’t do their job properly…

Now the researchers are trying to modify these sugars and finding out how it affects the function of these receptors. This could also provide a way of treating cancers by targeting these sugars using anti-receptor drugs.

A new protein that helps cells avoid cell death

Source: Science Daily

Long time no posts… I was kinda busy with my project work. So I’m actually trying to insert a few posts now to keep the blog active.

Ok…here we go… Researchers have found out a new protein called Dpo4 which helps a cell to avoid cell death allowing it to survive. But what happens here is this phenomenon could lead to cancer. Let me explain some basic concepts before proceeding further.

We know very well that DNA replication is a very important step in the process of cell division. Basically, the DNA of humans are double stranded. I’ll briefly explain you how DNA replication occurs.

The first thing that you should know is that the two strands of DNA are connected to each other by base pairs. There are four types of bases namely Adenine, Guanine, Thymine and Cytosine. Adenine binds only with thymine and Guanine binds only with Cytosine.

The first step is the splitting of DNA into two single strands. Then the replication step starts. Some enzymes are present which see what base is present in the single strand and place corresponding bases opposite to it and construct the other strand. So basically, the new DNA formed will have an old strand and a newly synthesised strand.

What happens now? Suppose because of some mutation, a base is missing in the strand. Normally, during such times, the repair work gets done and replication proceeds. In cases, where the mutation accumulates a lot, the cell commits suicide (Cell death).

This protein Dpo4 instead of allowing the cell to commit suicide, adds a base in front of the empty space of the old strand thus allowing the cell to bypass the damage and proceed with the replication process. When such errors are left unnoticed over a period of time, more mutations and more errors accumulate and the cell turns cancerous.

This is one of the latest interesting news that I read that I wanted to share it with you. Some more will follow pretty soon. Keep reading.

Researchers find out a novel method to prevent cancer metastasis

Source: science daily and www.vai.org

That’s right folks… this is an amazing breakthrough in the cancer research and will prove to be very useful or rather life saving for cancer patients.

Researchers at the Van Andel Institute have found out a protein called DIP which triggers “cell bubbling” and therefore metastasis.

For readers who are new to cancer research, here is a small bit of information. The term Metastasis is a phenomenon in which cancer cells that are initially formed at a particular region get loose and start spreading throughout the body.

Let’s come back… basically there is a protein called mDia2 which prevents tumour cell metastasis. Researches have found out that DIP interacts with mDia2 and causes the cell to bleb or bubble and thus cause metastasis.

mDia2 protein has been found to regulate the cell migration by regulating the formation of actin filaments. Hence when this protein is affected, metastasis is caused.

Researchers say that this research has thrown light onto the mechanisms involved in metastasis and that this line of research hasn’t been pursued before.

They also say that this could open up new avenues for finding out new type of drugs aimed at targeting such proteins.

Immune response to cancer stem cells may dictate cancer course

Source: Bio.com

I read this article in bio.com and found it interesting. So I thought of sharing it with you.

It is now known that mutations in the stem cells slowly accumulate as they divide and in the end develop into cancerous cells. Till now, researchers have been trying to trigger the immune system against the well developed tumour cells. But now, researchers at the Rockefeller University have found out that targeting the antigens of the cancer stem cells could provide a different result altogether.

The disease that they were analysing was MGUS (Monoclonal Gammopathy of Unknown Significance) which is a type of disease in which an abnormal amount of a particular antibody is produced. This disease is usually benign but in some rare cases, it was found to develop into multiple myeloma which is a cancer of blood plasma cells. It was during this time that they found that the response of the immune system to an embryonic stem cell protein SOX2 appeared to be protecting from the development of multiple myeloma.

From this analysis, the researchers have found out that the immune system reacts to a completely different set of antigens then it does when a full blown tumour is present. Hence they feel that if they can trigger the immune system to attack these “new” antigens, they could prevent cancer from becoming fully blown. But it is still confined to the lab and actual clinical testings have to be done. Hence this new type of therapy will take some time before it can come to a hospital near you.