Every medical press release promises to hold the key to the world’s greatest therapy and this one is no different. Scientists have found that a protein called S100PBP suppreses another protein, cathepsin Z, generating conditions that allow pancreatic cancer cells to spread into surrounding tissues. This will revolutionize therapeutics for pancreatic cancer, which is one of the hardest cancers to diagnose and treat. From Eureka Alert:
Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London have identified a new protein that makes pancreatic cancer cells less ‘sticky’ and therefore less able to attach to and invade other tissue.
The protein, known as S100PBP, does this by suppressing a second protein called cathepsin Z. The research team has shown that cathepsin Z makes pancreatic cancer cells sticky, allowing them to spread to their surrounding environment. Prior to this study nothing was known about the function of S100PBP in the body or the role that cathepsin Z plays in pancreactic cancer.
The findings, funded by the UK charity, Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund (PCRF), are reported today (26 March 2012) in TheAmerican Journal of Pathology.
Lead researcher Dr Tatjana Crnogorac-Jurcevic of Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary said: “We believe these findings are significant. A greater understanding of the role these proteins play in the adhesion and spread of pancreatic cancer to other organs, which is almost always the case in this deadly cancer, could help us to develop novel preventive and therapeutic targets.”