AsianScientist (Apr. 1, 2011) – Seoul National University researchers have found that high expressions of the protein variant of AIMP2 correlates to lower survival rates in lung cancer patients.
Lung cancer is one of the world’s most common cancers and a leading cause of death. Despite treatment with a combination of surgery, radiation and drugs, survival rates have not improved over the last few decades.
AIMP2 was previously shown to act as a tumor-suppressor by interacting with another tumor-suppressor, p53. However, the link with human cancers had not been definitively proven.
Published this week in the journal PLoS Genetics, the investigation confirmed AIMP2’s link with lung cancer.
The team showed that a variant of AIMP2, AIMP2-DX2, is highly expressed in human lung cancer cells, and compromises the tumor-suppressing activity of AIMP2 by competitively binding to p53. Suppression of AIMP2-DX2 slowed tumor growth, suggesting that this could be an exciting new therapeutic target.
New innovative therapies are important not only because of the high mortality rate associated with lung cancer, but because the majority of the drugs are cytotoxic, causing many adverse effects.
The article can be found at: Choi J.W. et al. (2011) Cancer-Associated Splicing Variant of Tumor Suppressor AIMP2/p38: Pathological Implication in Tumorigenesis.
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Source: Public Library of Science.
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