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【bio-news】科学家揭开抗癌基因之谜（sina采用）
Researchers Unlock Secrets of Anti-Cancer Gene
Discovery may hold key to future treatments,researchers say
HealthDay
Thursday, January 11, 2007
THURSDAY, Jan. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers think they have discovered how to boost one of the body's natural cancer fighters.
It might be possible to superpower the gene, known as PTEN, by tinkering with an enzyme that regulates its activity, scientists report in the Jan. 12 issue of Cell.
Although they are a long way from developing an actual drug based on the discovery, the ability to manipulate the tumor-suppressor gene is "potentially a real breakthrough," said study author Dr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi, a professor of cancer biology and genetics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Pandolfi and other researchers at Sloan-Kettering and Columbia University were intrigued by the PTEN gene, which suppresses tumors by preventing "excessive proliferation [of cells] that's associated with cancers and [inducing] cells to die when they misbehave and act as a tumor," Pandolfi explained.
Essentially, the PTEN gene acts as a guard inside a cell, explained Xuejun Jiang, director of a Sloan-Kettering laboratory that studies cells. But when the gene mutates, it stops guarding cells properly.
"The consequence is that those cells might grow crazily, and when they need to die, they don't die," Jiang said.
Scientists have noticed that mutated PTEN genes seem to be connected to several kinds of cancer, including tumors in the prostate, brain and breast.
In three new studies, published in the Jan. 12 issue of Cell, researchers report that an enzyme known as NEDD4-1 appears to be crucial in telling the PTEN gene what to do. Essentially, the enzyme regulates PTEN, which is itself a regulator, Jiang explained.
If there's more of the enzyme, the PTEN gene seems to do a shoddier job of keeping an eye on keeping cancer at bay. That made the scientists wonder whether they could control tumors by manipulating the levels of the enzyme.
"Now we are trying to build up more sophisticated cell models and animal models" to confirm whether this approach would work, Jiang said.
There's at least one possible hitch: tinkering with PTEN could be devastating, according to Pandolfi, because boosting its power could make the gene go after healthy cells.
That would, in essence, make a treatment toxic, just like current chemotherapy drugs sometimes poison the body as they kill the cancer.
This isn't the first time researchers have looked at PTEN. In 2005, researchers at Sloan-Kettering reported that the gene could stop massive tumor growth in prostate cancer even when another tumor suppressor, known as P53, was turned off.
In those cases, PTEN seemed to make mutating cancer cells go to sleep. 本人已认领该文编译，48小时后若未提交译文，请其他战友自由认领 Researchers Unlock Secrets of Anti-Cancer Gene
Discovery may hold key to future treatments,researchers say
HealthDay
Thursday, January 11, 2007
研究人员揭开抗癌基因之谜
研究发现未来治愈肿瘤的关键
每日健康新闻
2007年1月11日 星期四
THURSDAY, Jan. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers think they have discovered how to boost one of the body's natural cancer fighters.
本周四，1月11日（每日健康新闻）——研究人员认为他们已经找到如何增加人体内的一种天然抗癌物质的方法了。
It might be possible to superpower the gene, known as PTEN, by tinkering with an enzyme that regulates its activity, scientists report in the Jan. 12 issue of Cell.
据1月12日的《细胞》杂志上的一篇研究报告，有可能通过修补一种可调节PTEN活性的酶来加强其基因的表达。
Although they are a long way from developing an actual drug based on the discovery, the ability to manipulate the tumor-suppressor gene is "potentially a real breakthrough," said study author Dr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi, a professor of cancer biology and genetics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
该研究的作者，斯隆-凯特琳癌症中心肿瘤生物与遗传学教授Pier Paolo Pandolfi博士说，尽管要根据这一发现开发出一种真正的药物还需要很长时间，这种可操控肿瘤抑制基因的能力“有可能是一种突破。”
Pandolfi and other researchers at Sloan-Kettering and Columbia University were intrigued by the PTEN gene, which suppresses tumors by preventing "excessive proliferation [of cells] that's associated with cancers and [inducing] cells to die when they misbehave and act as a tumor," Pandolfi explained.
Pandolfi和斯隆-凯特琳癌症中心以及哥伦比亚大学的其他研究人员对PTEN很感兴趣。他解释说，该基因可通过阻止“癌症相关[细胞]过度增殖和诱导行为不良类似肿瘤的细胞死亡”来抑制肿瘤。
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作者:admin@医学,生命科学 2011-03-04 17:11
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