Researchers identify a new biomarker for personalized treatments against cancer
One of the features of cancer cells is their ability to avoid apoptosis, a process of programmed cell death to remove damaged cells. Nowadays, many research lines for new chemotherapy treatments try to induce apoptosis to remove cancer cells, or at least, reduce the size of the tumor. A new study, led by researcher Antonio Zorzano, professor at the Faculty of Biology of the UB and head of the Complex Metabolic Disease and Mitochondria Lab (IRB Barcelona), reveals the protein TP53INP2 plays a key role in the induction of the process of cell death.
One of the features of cancer cells is their ability to avoid apoptosis, a process of programmed cell death to remove damaged cells. Nowadays, many research lines for new chemotherapy treatments try to induce apoptosis to remove cancer cells, or at least, reduce the size of the tumor. A new study, led by researcher Antonio Zorzano, professor at the Faculty of Biology of the UB and head of the Complex Metabolic Disease and Mitochondria Lab (IRB Barcelona), reveals the protein TP53INP2 plays a key role in the induction of the process of cell death.
The study, published in The EMBO Journal, notes that “high levels of TP53INP2 in cells lead apoptosis to accelerate when certain receptors in the cell membrane are active, while those cells without this protein are more resistant to death”, notes Antonio Zorzano, professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biomedicine of the UB.
According to the new study, this protein could increase the efficiency of some chemotherapy treatments, such as TRAIL, a therapy with great potential to treat cancer. According to de Saška Ivanova, postdoctoral researcher at IRB Barcelona and first author of the study, “we demonstrate TP53INP2 makes cancer cells more sensitive to death signals, including TRAIL”.
TRAIL requires the identification of patients who are likely to respond to the treatment since, in some cases, this protocol can even enhance tumor progression. “Therefore, we propose the protein TP53INP2 as a potential marker to identify patients that could benefit from treatment with TRAIL”, highlights Zorzano, also member of the Diabetes and Associated Metabolic Diseases Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBERDEM).
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