Scientists reveal a new therapeutic vulnerability in pancreatic cancer eurekalert.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurekalert.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Adam Maida / The Atlantic / Getty
A real scientific advance, like a successful date, needs both preparation and serendipity. As a tired, single medical student, I used to feel lucky when I managed two good dates in a row. But career scientists must continually create this kind of magic. Universities judge their research faculty not so much by the quality of their discoveries as by the number of papers they’ve placed in scholarly journals, and how prestigious those journals happen to be. Scientists joke (and complain) that this relentless pressure to pad their résumés often leads to flawed or unoriginal publications. So when Randall Munroe, the creator of the long-running webcomic
Date Time
Mutant KRAS and p53 cooperate to drive pancreatic cancer metastasis
Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered that mutant KRAS and p53, the most frequently mutated genes in pancreatic cancer, interact through the CREB1 protein to promote metastasis and tumor growth. Blocking CREB1 in preclinical models reversed these effects and reduced metastases, suggesting an important new therapeutic target for the deadly cancer.
“To our knowledge, this is the first study to show how these two major genetic drivers work together to promote tumor growth and metastasis,” Kim said. “We learned that signaling downstream of mutant KRAS directly promotes mutant p53 activity. This discovery provides not only a new therapeutic target but unveils a vast transcriptional network that is activated downstream of these mutant proteins.”
Mutant KRAS and p53 cooperate to drive pancreatic cancer metastasis eurekalert.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurekalert.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.