Bacteria may help study about cancer

Source: Huliq.com

Hello everybody, so I'm back after a month with some more interesting news. Researchers have found out a new way to unravell the mechanisms of cancer by studying about a particular bacterium Listeria monocytogenes.

Let me tell you something about this bacterium. Listeria is a gram positive bacterium and it causes a host of diseases including septicemia, mengitis, fatal food poisoning (transmitted through improperly cooked food). Basically, this bacterium enters the body by stimulating the cells which inturn "swallow" the pathogen inside. This stimulation is known to be caused due to the presence of the protein Crk II.

So where does the cancer part come? Here we go...

This bacterium has the capacity to bring about internalisation and degradation of the receptor Met known to play a role in cancer. This is done in the presence of the protein InlB which is a Listeria protein. The most important thing to be noted is that this protein is assisted by a human protein Cbl. Hence studying about Cbl could throw light on how to design drugs to control Met related cancers.