Cutting off the Oxygen Supply to Serious Diseases
Work by Dr Tyson Sharp and his group leads to discovery of new protein
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A new family of proteins called 'LIM domain containing proteins,' which regulate the human body’s ‘hypoxic response’ to low levels of oxygen has been discovered by scientists at Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary, University of London and The University of Nottingham. The researchers have uncovered a previously unknown level of hypoxic regulation at a molecular level in human cells which could provide a novel pathway for the development of new drug therapeutics to fight disease. Cancer cells have a faulty hypoxic response which means that as the cells multiply they highjack the response to create their own rogue blood supply. In this way the cells can form large tumours. The new blood supply also helps the cancer cells spread to other parts of the body, called ‘metastasis’, which is how, ultimately, cancer kills patients. The discovery has been published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Cell Biology. It marks a significant step towards understanding the complex processes involved in the hypoxic response which, when it malfunctions, can cause and affect the progress of many types of serious disease, including cancer.
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