Understanding how certain cells in the brain and nervous system become cancerous -
Scientists from the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York with the help of University of Plymouth Peninsula medical school and dentistry conducted research which, for the first time brings us closer to understanding how certain cells in the brain and nervous system become cancerous.
the results of their study are published in the prestigious journal Cancer cell .
The research team led by Sloan-Kettering researchers studied a tumor suppressor called Merlin.
The results of the study have identified a new mechanism by which Merlin suppresses tumors, and that the mechanism works in the nucleus. The research team discovered that tumor cells undeleted increase through a basic signaling system, track hippopotamus, and identified the road and the method by which this signaling occurs.
By identifying the signaling system and understand how, when present, Merlin removes it, the way is open for research on drug therapies that can suppress signaling in a manner similar to Merlin.
tumor suppressor exist in the cells to prevent the abnormal cell division in the body. Merlin loss leads to tumors in many cell types in the nervous system. There are two copies of a tumor suppressor gene, one on each chromosome we inherit from our parents. Merlin loss may be caused by the random loss of both copies in a single cell, causing sporadic tumors, or inheriting an abnormal copy and losing the second copy throughout our lives as we see in the inherited disorder neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2).
No effective treatment exists for these tumors, other than the repeated invasive surgery to a single tumor at a time and is unlikely to eradicate the entire extent of the tumor or radiation.
Professor Oliver Hanemann, director of the Institute of Translational and Stratified Medicine of the University of Plymouth Peninsula Medical School and Dentistry, and who led the Plymouth side of the study, said: "We have known for some time that loss of the tumor suppressor Merlin led the development of tumors of the nervous system, and we came awfully close to understand how this happens. Our joint study with colleagues from the Institute Sloan Kettering Cancer Research shows first how this works Understanding the mechanism, we can use this knowledge to develop effective drug therapies. - in some cases, the adaptation of existing drugs. - to treat patients for whom treatment current is limited and potentially devastating "
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