Scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center may have discovered why some brain cancer patients develop resistance to standard treatments including radiation and the chemotherapy agent temozolomide.<\/p>\n
Simply put, it\u2019s all in their DNA, and it could open up new avenues for treating certain kinds of brain cancer.<\/p>\n
DNA, the body\u2019s essential storehouse for genetic information. In the case of glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive type of glioma or brain cancer, it can also allow the disease to progress more quickly when it is \u201cenhanced,\u201d allowing damaged or mutated cancer cells to repair themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cA major obstacle to effective treatment is acquired resistance to treatment,\u201d said Wei Zhang, Ph.D., professor of Pathology. \u201cEnhanced DNA repair can allow these cancer cells to survive, contributing to resistance and tumour recurrence. We have identified Aktr3 as having the ability to robustly stimulate glioma progression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Akts are proteins known as kinases that regulate cell signalling. They\u2019re involved in many bodily processes such as cell growth, cell death and tumour growth. Akts are thought to contribute to the development and progression of many cancers including prostate, breast, liver, colorectal and others. One form of this protein, Akt3, appears to be especially prevalent in the brain.<\/p>\n
Zhang\u2019s findings describe his team\u2019s study results showing how Akt3 activates key DNA repair pathways.<\/p>\n
In Zhang\u2019s research, he reveals that Akt3 is tied to DNA\u2019s \u201crepair panel,\u201d somehow boosting activation of DNA repair proteins, leading to increased DNA repair, and subsequently to cancer treatment resistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis activation led to enhanced survival of brain tumour cells following radiation or treatment with temozolomide,\u201d said Zhang. \u201cOur work has potentially broad application to multiple cancer types in which Akt3 is expressed. Blocking this pathway may help prevent or alleviate therapeutic resistance resulting from enhanced DNA repair.\u201d\nMD Anderson Cancer Center<\/link>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center may have discovered why some brain cancer patients develop resistance to standard treatments including radiation and the chemotherapy agent temozolomide. Simply put, it\u2019s all in their DNA, and it could open up new avenues for treating certain kinds of brain cancer. DNA, the body\u2019s essential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}