Possible cancer 'suppressor' protein seen
MONTREAL (UPI) -- Canadian researchers say they've discovered a key reason why cancer cells proliferate and spread to other parts of the body.
Scientists at the Universite de Montreal say the finding could lead to better diagnostic tests for cancer and even possible therapies that could stop tumor cells from growing and spreading, The Montreal Gazette reported Friday.
The researchers examined tissue samples from 65 patients at Montreal's Notre-Dame Hospital with confirmed prostate cancer and compared them with an analysis of 13 patients suffering from benign prostatic hyperplasia, a non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate.
In the patients with the benign growth the prostate cells contained high levels of a molecule called PML that has been shown to limit the number of times a pre-cancerous cell can divide.
In the 65 patients with prostate cancer, there was no PML protein detected in the cells, allowing the malignant prostate cells to continue to divide and to grow unchecked, the researchers say.
One of the co-authors of the study called PML a "tumor suppressor protein."
"Our findings unravel the unexpected ability of PML to organize a network of tumor suppression proteins to repress ... cell proliferation," Veronique Bourdeau said.
The research could be a starting point for a drug therapy to stimulate the expression of PML in cancer cells, forcing the cells to stop dividing and thereby halting the spread of the disease, Bourdeau said.
Copyright 2011 by United Press International
