An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Stony Brook University Medical Center has identified a family of genes linked to the development of liver cancer.
Principal Investigator Wadie F. Bahou, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Genetics, and colleagues discovered in a mouse model that the loss of one specific gene (Iqgap2) in this family causes Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). They also found that when another member of the gene family (Iqgap1) is turned on, a more aggressive form of the disease occurs. Their findings are reported in the March issue of Molecular and Cellular Biology.
Dr. Bahou says that the findings regarding the two genes demonstrate that both genes could serve as a basis for developing important targets for early diagnosis and/or treatment of HCC. The disease accounts for more than 80 percent of all liver cancer in humans, which causes death in 500,000 to 1 million adults annually worldwide. Treatment for advanced HCC is often ineffective. A recently approved chemotherapy drug developed to treat metastatic liver cancer provides disease stabilization but not a cure.
“This is an exciting development in the field of cancer research, as there is a tremendous need for targeted therapies for liver cancer,” emphasizes Dr. Bahou. “The data resulting from our research provides important insights into genes that may predispose to HCC development,” he adds, further noting that the model is a valuable tool for testing therapeutic agents aimed at curing liver cancer.
Dr. Bahou explains that to date attempts to treat liver cancer have been difficult without appropriate animal models of disease. He says that the model generated by the Stony Brook team is the closest to human disease because: 1) The disease closely resembles human HCC microscopically; 2) does not require intervention from outside sources, such as chemically induced cancer models; 3) is associated with a reproducible and very high incidence of HCC, and 4) is strictly limited to HCC.