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— BUSM researchers develop blood test to detect membranous nephropathy — Research conducted by a pair of physicians at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Centre (BMC) has led to the development of a test that can help diagnose…
— New hip implants no better than traditional implants — New hip implants appear to have no advantage over traditional implants, suggests a review of the evidence published on bmj.com today…
— Action needed to improve men's health in Europe — Policies aimed specifically at men are urgently needed to improve the health of Europe's men, say experts on bmj.com today…
— Probiotics reduce infections for patients in intensive care — Traumatic brain injury is associated with a profound suppression of the patient's ability to fight infection. At the same time the patient also often suffers hyper-inflammation, due…
— High blood sugar levels in older women linked to colorectal cancer — Elevated blood sugar levels are associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer, according to a study led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.…
— Engineered botulism toxins could have broader role in medicine — The most poisonous substance on Earth - already used medically in small doses to treat certain nerve disorders and facial wrinkles - could be re-engineered for an expanded role in helping…
New therapeutic target for lung cancer
A new therapeutic target for lung cancer has been discovered by researchers at Seoul National University. It was found that a variant of the protein AIMP2 is highly expressed in lung cancer cells and also that patients demonstrating high expression of this variant show lower survival. The study is published on March 31 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.
Lung cancer is one of the world's most common cancers and a leading cause of death resulting from cancer. Despite treatment with a combination of surgery, radiation and drugs, the survival rate for patients has not drastically improved over the past few decades. It had previously been shown that the protein AIMP2 acted as a tumour-suppressor by interacting with another oncosuppressor, p53. However, whether AIMP2 was indeed pathologically linked to human cancer had not been definitively proved. This investigation discovered that a variant of AIMP2 is highly expressed in human lung cancer cells. AIMP2-DX2 compromises the tumour-suppressing activity of AIMP2 by competitively binding to p53. It was also shown that suppression of AIMP2-DX2 slowed tumour growth, suggesting that this could be an exciting new therapeutic target.
New innovative therapies are important not only because of the high mortality rate associated with lung cancer, but because the majority of the drugs are cytotoxic, causing many adverse effects. These findings could create an opportunity to develop new innovative cancer drugs, as well as presenting a new target that could also be applied to other cancers.
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