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- Parent Category: Cancer
- Category: Research
Ultraviolet radiation from the sun can zap DNA, damage cells, and set the stage for the subsequent development of cancer. Scientists have now identified the built-in safety mechanism that forces some cells damaged by UV radiation to commit suicide so they do not perpetuate harmful mutations.
Alberto R. Kornblihtt, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute international research scholar at the University of Buenos Aires and the National Research Council of Argentina, has found that UV radiation causes human cells to create proteins that trigger cell death. It’s a built-in safety pathway whose precise mechanism had never been seen before.
Read more: Scientists Discover How UV Radiation Causes Cells to Die to Avoid Cancer Damage
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- Parent Category: Cancer
- Category: Treatments
by Simone Alves
Regulation is controlled by PTEN, PI3K/Akt and drug-effluxing ABCG2
Some chemotherapeutics used to target gliomas may actually increase the cancer stem cell population and make tumours more aggressive.
Working in mice genetically engineered to have gliomas, Eric Holland and his team at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York showed that a previously identified population of brain cells known as the side population is more tumorigenic than other cells in the brain. The proportion of cells belonging to the side population (SP) was also several-fold larger in glioma-susceptible mice compared to normal mice, and this population increased in the absence of the tumour suppressor gene PTEN. SP cells from gliomas were able to generate neurospheres in vitro, suggesting that this population can harbour brain cancer stem cells.
Read more: Treatment Encourages More and More Aggressive Brain Cancer Stem Cells
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- Parent Category: Cancer
- Category: Research
by Monya Baker
Two papers point to how cancer cells go astray
A growing body of research in breast cancer, leukaemia and brain cancer shows that cancer stem cells co-opt the pathways of regular stem cells to maintain themselves and resist treatments. Two recent studies in acute myeloid leukaemia have used very different techniques that each point to the likelihood of uncovering strategies to target cancer stem cells while sparing healthy stem cells.
Read more: Aberrant as Well as Embryonic Pathways in Leukaemic Stem Cells
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- Parent Category: Cancer
- Category: Research
Researchers have uncovered the first genetic clues that suggest how invasive breast cancer cells pry their way into the tightly protected interior of the brain, where they can grow into new and lethal tumors. Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher Joan Massagué and colleagues at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have identified three genes that work together to fuel the spread of breast cancer to the brain.
Their studies indicate that those renegade cancer cells use some of the same strategies that other breast cancer cells rely on to invade the lungs – but also need more specialized molecular tools to infiltrate the brain. The study is reported in an advance online publication on May 6, 2009, in the journal Nature.
Read more: Researchers Identify Genes that Drive Breast Cancer’s Spread to the Brain
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- Parent Category: Cancer
- Category: News
by Monya Baker
Inhibitors of the protein survivin might lower tumour risk
The ability of embryonic stem cells to form noncancerous tumours called teratomas is one of their defining traits. It is also a frightening one, particularly for those who hope to develop therapies from the cells. New research from Nissim Benvenisty and colleagues at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem helps to explain why human embryonic stem cells can form teratomas and may provide a way to keep teratomas in check1.
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- Parent Category: Cancer
- Category: News
Researchers say cells were poorly characterized prior to transplantation
Foetal stem cells transplanted to a boy with a hereditary neurodegenerative disease have grown into noncancerous tumours in his brain and spinal cord. Though the poorly documented procedure did not occur as part of a clinical trial, it marks the first reported case of a brain tumour resulting from stem cell transplantation and highlights potential risks of cell-based therapies.
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