When an individual devotes his/her research efforts to uncover ways to cure a disease such as cancer, it may seem to take a long time to achieve the desired results. But when two researchers join together in the same effort, the achieved results may come a little faster.
Recently, the results did prove to be fruitful for a research team at the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology at the University of Porto in Portugal, who received assistance from Fernando Rodrigues and Teresa Martins of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology. The research team isolated the LRP1B gene, which releases an army of proteins that attack cancer forming cells and prevent the production of new cancer cells.
“If this protein is in fact confirmed strategies based on decoy proteins — proteins with the same function of LRP1B — could be developed to restore normal conditions," Paula Soares stated in an article on News-Medical.net
LRP1B works as a transporter of healthy mechanisms to clear out damaged areas that lurk within the body, areas that may indicate the beginning stages of cancer. The healthy mechanisms, referred to as “cell membranes,” work to pull out diseased molecules from cells. In 2010, Hugo Prazeres and Paula Soares conducted a research study based on twenty-six different types of cancer samples, and found that LRP1B was isolated in nearly ten of the samples utilized.
Thyroid cancer was one of the predominant factors in the isolation of LRP1B. The main component in thyroid cancer is that it includes two types, familial or sporadic, which means that one is an inherited form (familial), and the other is non-inherited (sporadic). Both types displayed decreased levels of LRP1B, and the marked decrease in the LRP1B levels indicated that cancer could be present in the body.
After Prazeres and Soares conducted the original study, the research team performed two other experiments to confirm the presence of LRP1B within the cells. The first experiment compared normal and diseased thyroid tissues, which revealed that the lower level of LRP1B on the diseased tissues indicated how fast the cancer is growing. When the researchers inserted LRP1B into the cancerous cells, new LRP1B cells formed without the formation of new cancerous cells.
Once the first experiment ended, the next experiment evaluated how cells around the cancer area performed with and without the insertion of LRP1B and whether the cells produced lower levels of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP). When MMP invades the matrix, it enables new cancer cells to grow and spread out to other cells and structural organs. By utilizing LRP1B, the researchers altered the MMP matrix, and prevented further destruction of the MMP and stopped the spread of cancer cells. The researchers also realized that LRP1B gave way to a methylated process of the cells. The methylated process is referred to as the creation of MicroRNA, which behaves as an attacker to suppress genes that create cancerous cells.
What is on the horizon for Hugo Prazeres and Paula Soares? The research team is now working to evaluate how LRP1B can change other cells. “If this protein is in fact confirmed to be detected in multiple cancers, like others and our group has suggested, then strategies based on decoy proteins — proteins with the same function of LRP1B — could be developed to restore normal conditions,” Soares stated in an article on News-medical.net.
Sources:
http://www.labmate-online.com/news/news-and-views/5/breaking_news/scientists_discover_cancer-suppression_gene/14472/
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20110321/Researchers-discover-broad-spectrum-cancer-suppressor-gene.aspx?page=1