Scientists Develop Compound to Block Signalling of Cancer-Causing Protein

A compound that blocks signalling from a protein implicated in many types of cancer has been developed by scientists.

Researchers at New York University's Department of Chemistry and NYU Langone Medical Center examined signalling by receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK).

Testicular Cancer - Risk Factors - Symptoms - Diagnosis - Staging - Treatment - Prognosis
A person with testicular cancer may have a testicle that is three times its original size. The most cited risk factor is undescended testes.

Abnormal RTK signalling is a major underlying cause of various developmental disorders and diseases, including many forms of cancer.

RTK signalling pathway employs interactions between proteins Sos and Ras, and accounts for a broad range of molecular changes that underlie various cancers and other diseases.

Disrupting the Sos-Ras interaction, then, is crucial to stemming the production of cancer cells.

Thyroid Cancer – Symptoms - Risk Factors - Diagnosis - Treatment - Prevention
“Shaped like a butterfly she sits within the neck,” that’s what an anonymous poet wrote about the thyroid gland but it can become cancerous and spread to other parts.

However, interactions between large protein molecules such as Ras and Sos have been difficult to modulate with artificial means.

Through a series of experimental and computational analyses, the scientists hypothesized that by mimicking a key portion of Sos, they might disrupt its interactions with Ras.

Tumor Markers - For Cancer Diagnosis and Prognosis
An ideal tumor marker for a cancer should be specific to that cancer and not generate false positive results.

Specifically, they observed that Sos activates Ras through a helix-a critical portion of Sos that makes contact with Ras. Creation of this Sos mimetic required a method for locking correct helical shapes in synthetic strings of amino acids - a method previously developed at NYU School of Medicine.

The researchers note that synthetic Sos may offer a lead for the creation of pharmaceuticals that can block Sos-Ras interaction.

The compound is described in the latest issue of the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

Source-ANI