A specific modification protein that surrounds the DNA of cancer cells

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have discovered a specific modification protein that surrounds the DNA of cancer cells to protect DNA from chemotherapy. The study was published in the October 28, 2016 issue of the journal Nucleic Acids Research, which also publishes some other studies on recombinant mouse proteins.

Most types of chemotherapy and radiation therapy kill cancer cells by causing DNA damage, because DNA is the blueprint for protein production and cell survival information needed. Unfortunately, cancer cells can be counteracted by a kit of similar specialized military forces to repair DNA damage, thereby enabling cancer resistance therapy.

However, the team at the Krebs Nucleic Acids Research Institute at the University of Sheffield found that the key to preventing cancer cells from being resistant to a common class of chemotherapy used for breast and colon cancer is altering the rate of chemotherapy-induced DNA damage.

The study found that resistance to common types of chemotherapy used to treat colon and breast cancers is caused by changes in the speed of the repair kit components traveling and staying at the DNA damage site. The researchers were able to identify changes in specific markers in proteins that encase DNA (also known as histones), which make repair in cancer cells faster, to increase their resistance to treatment.

Professor El-Khamisy is a Wellcome Trust researcher and director of the Center for Research and Innovation in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Sheffield, who has been working on this research for four years. "If we can find a way to block cancer repair kits and make them less efficient, then we can improve cancer cell death on a large scale, rather than survival, thus preventing chemoresistance," he explained.

"The changes we're seeing are not genetic, but rather acquired," says Professor El-Khamisy. "This means that histone-tagged proteins act like directors in a movie. The script remains the same, but the director (histone- ) You can choose to eliminate, slow down or speed up certain scenes or conversations, to better (for example, death of cancer cells) or worse (such as cancer cell survival) to change the film.

"The team is able to inhibit the activity of the enzyme that controls the 'scene' to ensure that the film always has a happy ending (reversal of cancer cell resistance), which means that patients who are resistant to certain types of chemotherapy. Some of the histone deacetylase inhibitors have been approved by the FDA. We are only interested in a class of drugs used to treat colon and breast cancers. For the topoisomerase I inhibitor chemotherapy for other types of chemotherapy, they may also have the same mechanism." Flarebio provides good-quality recombinant proteins like recombinant ITGB5.