'Chemical tags' may lead to cancer development
This year cancer is expected to become the single biggest killer in the world, but specialists believe that they may have found the reason why the disease develops.
According to experts at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, chemical tags are responsible for changing people's metabolism and, subsequently their chances of developing cancer.
Researchers at the facility said that the addition or removal of a certain type of chemical tag, called an acetyl group, onto metabolic enzymes plays a key role in how cellular metabolism is regulated.
Dr Yue Xiong, professor of biochemistry and biophysics and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center who led the study, said that they have discovered an entirely new layer of control of metabolism.
"This process - the acetylation of metabolic enzymes - appears to be highly conserved during evolution and very dynamic, which makes it an ideal target for future drug development," he said.
The expert added that if the team can identify which enzyme or enzymes are responsible for the difference in metabolism between normal and tumour cells, then new targets for treating cancer patients are possible.
Dr Xiong says he thinks that acetylation is likely to play a "very extensive role" in regulation of many different cellular processes, not only metabolism.
He revealed that the next step is to take their findings in normal cells and see how it can inform their study of tumour cells, again leading to the possibility of better identification and treatment of cancer, as well as halting progress of the disease.
"[We] are in the process of looking at each metabolic enzyme, one-by-one, to see which one displays the most disparate acetylation patterns between normal and cancer cells," the expert concluded.
Posted by Louise Jones
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