NOTCH Cancer Protein Disabled -Scientists have devised an innovative way to disarm a key cancer protein dubbed NOTCH, previously considered to be “undruggable.”
Their discovery, published in the November 12 issue of “Nature”, lays the foundation for a new kind of cancer therapy aimed directly at a critical human protein called NOTCH — one of a few thousand so-called “transcription factors” — that could someday be used to treat a variety of diseases, especially multiple types of cancer.
Abnormal NOTCH genes found in cancer patients remain in a state of constant activity, switched on all the time, which helps to drive the uncontrolled cell growth that fuels tumors.
Similar abnormalities in NOTCH also underlie a variety of other cancers, including lung, ovarian, pancreatic and gastrointestinal cancers.
The researchers, experimenting on mice, created chemical “staples” to mold snippets of NOTCH protein into shapes capable of disrupting the protein’s function.
The NOTCH protein is linked to runaway cell growth in leukemia and other cancers, but it was disarmed by the stapled peptides in tests, and tumors receded.
“The new chemical has only been tested in mice so far, and so we don’t know how it will behave in humans,” said senior author James Bradner, a Harvard chemical biologist and oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
“But, long-term, it may lead to alternative drugs and better treatments for this kind of leukemia and maybe other cancers.”
And that’s the latest news on a promising medical breakthrough where the NOTCH Cancer Protein Disabled.
Tags: cancer, cancer breakthrough, health, notch cancer protein disbaled