Newly identified gene crucial in understanding pancreatic cancer
Scientists from the University of Michigan have announced that they have identified a gene which appears overexpressed in over 90% of pancreatic cancers. Pancreatic cancer is the most deadly cancer of all — ACS predicts that over 38,000 people will be diagnosed with this disease during this year, and 35,000 will die.
The gene is called ATDC, and its expression is around twenty times higher in cells that have cancer than normal pancreatic cells.
Diane Simone, one of the researchers, said: “One of the challenges in pancreatic cancer is that it is biologically aggressive and it does not respond well to chemotherapy or radiation. We found that ATDC not only causes the cancer cells to grow faster and be more aggressive, but it also makes the cancer cells particularly resistant to chemotherapy and radiation. By targeting this gene, we may be able to make cancer cells more sensitive to the therapies we already have in hand.”
Scientists from Michigan think that the further work around ATDC will make it possible to develop new treatment therapies for pancreatic cancer. They also think that ATDC might be overexpressed in other cancers, such as lung or bladder.
The details are published in Cancer Cell.
Adopted from materials provided by med.umich.edu
