Tag Archives: rna

Customizing chemotherapy in lung cancer: New phase II data reported

In a randomized phase II study, researchers showed that patients whose lung cancers expressed low levels of an enzyme called thymidylate synthase experienced a greater benefit from treatment with the combination of pemetrexed and cisplatin than those whose tumours expressed high levels. “Thymidylate synthase is one of the proteins that is targeted by pemetrexed which is the most widely used chemotherapeutic regimen in the treatment of non-squamous NSCLC,” explains study author Professor Myung-Ju Ahn, from the Section of Hematology-Oncology at Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. “In this study, we tried to evaluate whether expression of thymidylate synthase is a predictive factor for response to pemetrexed plus cisplatin chemotherapy compared with gemcitabine plus cisplatin in non-squamous cell lung cancer patients.” In terms of response rate and progression-free survival, the clinical benefits of the pemetrexed combination compared to other regimen were more prominent in those patients who expressed low levels of the molecule, Ahn said…

Researchers engineer ‘Cas9’ animal models to study disease, inform drug discovery

In recent years, genetic studies have found thousands of links between genes and various diseases. But in order to prove that a specific gene is playing a role in the development of the disease, researchers need a way to perturb it — that is, turn the gene off, turn it on, or otherwise alter it — and study the effects. The CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing system is one of the most convenient methods available for making these alterations in the genome. While the tool is already being used to test the effects of mutations in vitro — in cultured cell lines, for instance — it is now possible to use this tool to study gene functions using intact biological systems…

New approach aims to silence cancer ‘survival genes’

The new method works by silencing cancer ‘survival genes’ and could potentially combat cancer through the selective killing of colorectal cancer cells without adverse effects on normal, non-cancer cells. Funded by York’s Centre for Chronic Diseases and Disorders (C2D2), the project led by Professor Jo Milner from York’s Department of Biology involved preliminary studies to establish the suitability of an ex vivo model for the future development of anti-cancer therapies for colorectal cancer using a technique called RNA interference. The new approach builds on ground-breaking research by Professor Milner and her team at York more than a decade ago. This early work, funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research (YCR), used the newly-developed technique of RNA interference to successfully kill human cervical cancer cells grown in culture without causing damage to healthy cells. …

Gene expression patterns in pancreatic circulating tumor cells revealed

“Our ability to combine a novel microfluidic CTC isolation device, developed here at MGH, with single-cell RNA sequencing has given us new biological insights into these cells and revealed novel avenues to try and block the spread of cancer,” says lead author David T. Ting, MD, MGH Cancer Center. Pancreatic cancer is among the most deadly of tumors because it spreads rapidly via CTCs carried in the bloodstream. …

Ovarian cancer oncogene found in ‘junk DNA’

Most of those studies have focused on the portion of the human genome that encodes protein — a fraction that accounts for just 2 percent of human DNA overall. Yet the vast majority of genomic alterations associated with cancer lie outside protein-coding genes, in what traditionally has been derided as “junk DNA.” Researchers today know that “junk DNA” is anything but — much of it is transcribed into RNA, for instance — but finding meaning in those sequences remains a challenge. Now a team led by Lin Zhang, PhD, research associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has mined those sequences to identify a non-protein-coding RNA whose expression is linked to ovarian cancer. …

New genetic target for a different kind of cancer drug found

“Historically, scientists haven’t targeted the proteins in cancer cells that are involved in gene splicing,” said Zefeng Wang, PhD, associate professor in the department of pharmacology and senior author of the Cancer Cell paper. “This is a whole new ballgame in terms of gene regulation in cancer.” There are approximately 25,000 genes in the human genome — the same amount as in a fruit fly. But in humans, these genes are spliced together in different ways to create various kinds of messenger RNA to produce the many different proteins humans require…

New genetic target for a different kind of cancer drug found — ScienceDaily

“Historically, scientists haven’t targeted the proteins in cancer cells that are involved in gene splicing,” said Zefeng Wang, PhD, associate professor in the department of pharmacology and senior author of the Cancer Cell paper. “This is a whole new ballgame in terms of gene regulation in cancer.” There are approximately 25,000 genes in the human genome — the same amount as in a fruit fly. But in humans, these genes are spliced together in different ways to create various kinds of messenger RNA to produce the many different proteins humans require. It’s like a filmmaker splicing together bits of movie scenes to create alternative cuts of a movie…

Cellular biology of colorectal cancer: New Insight

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. …