Scientists in Scotland have discovered a natural mech- anism that protects healthy cells from cancer...
Scientists in Scotland have discovered a natural mech- anism that protects healthy cells from cancer.
A molecule called ARF has been found to switch off 'sinister signals' from another molecule called NF-kappaB that, if left, can turn cells cancerous. Researchers believe that mimicking this action could help prevent the disease by killing cancer cells outright or making them more sensitive to the effects of chemotherapy.
Leading researcher Dr Neil Parkins, said: 'Knowing how the safeguard works is an important advance, because it highlights a new and potentially valuable route to attack cancer cells.'
The scientific team, funded by Cancer Research UK, believes that when cancer is developing, the ARF molecule may become inactive, meaning NF-KappaB is free to encourage the disease to progress. By killing NF-KappaB, it can therefore prevent cancer cells from growing and spreading.
In healthy tissue, NF-KappaB is usually only switched on in response to infection or cell damage, helping tissue to recover and keeping damaged cells alive.
Its function becomes sub- verted in cancer, using these abilities to allow tumours to resist chemotherapy. The new findings may, therefore, be of greatest use making cancer cells more sensitive to the effects of existing types of chemotherapy.
Head of clinical programmes for Cancer Research UK, Dr Richard Sullivan, said: 'Cancer is an incredibly complex group of diseases, so our research has to be innovative and wide-ranging if we are to find ways of tackling some of the more stubborn kinds. This study has suggested an intriguing new avenue of attack against cancer, which aims to exploit one of the body's own defence mechanisms to keep the disease at bay.'
