A study published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology reveals the existence of an antitumor molecule that originates within a gene that causes cancer. This molecule is capable of blocking the growth of human tumors implanted in research animals.
Tumors produce, on the one hand, the activation of oncogenes or genes responsible for cancer, and on the other the inhibition of protective genes, called antioncogenes. Researchers from the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (Barcelona) have identified an antioncogene within an oncogene called SMYD3. It is an RNA molecule that does not produce proteins , but nevertheless regulates the expression of others. Its function in healthy cells is to inhibit the pro-cancer action of the oncogene.
The scientists found that this RNA fragment blocked the advancement of cancer in cancer cells grown in the laboratory or in human tumors implanted in research animals. "We believe that this discovery will be the starting point to find many other oncogenes and antioncogenes that coexist in regions of our genome and that, when their coexistence deteriorates, they contribute to the development of human tumors", explained Manel Esteller, one of the authors .
