A possible new therapeutic target for pancreatic cancer, the most lethal form of human cancer, has been identified in the proteins whose DNA recipe comes from gene, "Seven-In-Absentia," according to researchers at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) 48th Annual Meeting, Dec. 13-17, 2008 in San Francisco.
In their studies with the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Minnesota, scientists found a link between the "Seven-In-Absentia" or SINA gene and the aggressive cellular transformation, oncogenesis and metastasis that characterize pancreatic cancer.
Scientists already knew that a mutation in the K-RAS gene underlies the abnormal, excessive cell growth of pancreatic cancer.
Because the mutated form of this growth-promoting gene is hyperactivated, a major signaling pathway that drives cell growth is in over-drive in most patients with this cancer.
The "Seven-In-Absentia-Homolog" (SIAH) protein seems to work as a check and balance mechanism in the K-RAS pathway by chewing up and turning off the excessive growth-promoting proteins produced by the hyperactive, mutated form of the gene, says Amy Tang whose Mayo lab conducted the research.
"By attacking the SIAH-based protein degrading machinery, we block tumor formation in one of the most aggressive human cancers cells known," she reports.
Because of these results, SIAH may be an attractive new target for novel anti-RAS and anti-cancer therapy in pancreatic cancer, the median survival of which is only six months, and the mortality rate is 95 percent.