Motivated by experiments in the Molecular Neurotology Laboratory at Mass. Eye and Ear involving human tumor specimens, the researchers performed a retrospective analysis of over 600 people diagnosed with vestibular schwannoma at Mass. …
"For the first time, we know what it will take to draw the complete genomic picture of human cancer," said Broad Institute founding director Eric Lander, a senior co-author of the paper. "That’s tremendously exciting, because the knowledge of genes and their pathways will highlight new, potential drug targets and help lead the way to effective combination therapy." Over the past 30 years, scientists had found evidence for about 135 genes that play causal roles in one or more of the 21 tumor types analyzed in the study. The new report not only confirms these genes, but, in one fell swoop, increases the catalog of cancer genes by one-quarter. It uncovers 33 genes with biological roles in cell death, cell growth, genome stability, immune evasion, as well as other processes…
Such is the case with two proteins identified by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center that fit on to the same binding site on an important cellular growth factor receptor called FGFR2 with starkly different results. "There is competition for binding to FGFR2 and one of the two competitors, phospholipase Cγ1 (Plcγ1), will increase cancer cell metastasis. The other protein inhibits the opportunity for this to occur," said John Ladbury, Ph.D., professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. …
Scientists have sequenced the genome of the world’s oldest continuously surviving cancer, a transmissible genital cancer that affects dogs. This cancer, which causes grotesque genital tumors in dogs around the world, first arose in a single dog that lived about 11,000 years ago. The cancer survived after the death of this dog by the transfer of its cancer cells to other dogs during mating…
The study, published today in Developmental Cell, describes a number of routes to the formation of a microtubule spindle — the tracks along which DNA moves when a cell divides in order to make two genetically identical cells. In order to understand the phenomenon, the authors, including Biosciences researchers Dr…
The gene-gene interactions underlying CM had not been fully explored. The usual functional model uses substitution of alleles for estimating genetic effects but the estimators are confounded. The NOIA model estimates population effects of alleles and the resulting estimators are orthogonal and no longer confounded. In simulation studies, the NOIA model had higher power for finding interactions and main effects than the usual model. …
The findings of Rb’s role at multiple points in the disease process point to a potential new therapeutic target in patients with the most aggressive subset of breast cancer, known as basal-like breast carcinomas. This type of cancer has no estrogen receptor expression, and to date there is no efficient therapy for patients who suffer from it, leaving them with a generally poor prognosis. …
Translational researchers from UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) have published results of two back-to-back studies in the journal Cancer Discovery that provide critical insights into two key areas of how tumors resist BRAF inhibitors: the key cell-signaling pathways BRAF-mutant melanoma cells use to learn how to become resistant to inhibitor drugs, and how the limited focus of BRAF inhibitors allows melanoma cells to evolve and develop drug resistance. The studies were published online ahead of print on November 21, 2013…
source : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131115094321.htm
The multidisciplinary team discovered that a cholesterol metabolite called 27-hydroxycholesterol, or 27HC, promotes tumor growth in estrogen-receptor positive breast cancers, which are the most common type of breast cancer. Estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer was previously believed to be stimulated primarily by the female sex hormone estrogen and it is commonly treated using endocrine-based medications that starve tumors of estrogen. The discovery of 27HC as another driver of breast cancer may explain why endocrine-based therapy is often unsuccessful, providing a new target for therapy, the researchers say. "This information can be used to develop new therapies that inhibit 27HC action or production, or increase its metabolism, in effect cutting the cancer off from a key growth stimulator," said senior author Dr…