A connection between inflammation and cancer has been recognized for over a hundred years. This connection is particularly evident in colon carcinogenesis, because patients with IBD have a higher incidence of colon cancer than the general population. …
Of course, the effort was hardly so simple as doubling up. …
The so-called Signal Transducers and Activators of Transcription, or STATs, are key components of many different signalling pathways. Not surprisingly, then, when something goes wrong with their regulation the consequences can be severe and many types of cancer are known to be associated with increased activities of one or more STAT protein. STAT3 is a frequent culprit and is often found to be activated in tumour cells. Considerable efforts are going into developing inhibitors of STAT3 for use in cancer therapy but it is unclear whether these will turn out to be suitable for use in patients. …
Lead author Kristi Neufeld, associate professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences and co-leader of the Cancer Biology program at the KU Cancer Center, has spent the better part of her career trying to understand the various activities of APC, a protein whose functional loss is thought to initiate roughly 80 percent of all colon polyps, a precursor to colon cancer. Neufeld, along with her postdoctoral fellow Maged Zeineldin, undergraduate student Mathew Miller and veterinary pathologist Ruth Sullivan, now reports that APC found in a particular subcellular compartment, the nucleus, protects from inflammation as well as tumor development associated with chronic colitis. Whether APC reaches the nucleus may well affect the ability of intestinal stem cells to produce differentiated cells with specialized functions, Neufeld said. …
In a study published last year, the group succeded in eradicating lung tumors in transgenic mice by adopting the same strategy involving the expression of Omomyc, a Myc inhibitor designed by Soucek. They also confirmed that there were no side effects post-administration of repeated and long-term treatment. Importantly, there was no evidence of resistance to therapy — one of the greatest challenges in the treatment of cancer. …
source : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140413171712.htm
source : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140313123131.htm
source : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140216182016.htm
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source : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140128103117.htm