AsianScientist (Sep. 26, 2016) – Researchers have identified genes that control cellular senescence—the permanent arrest of cell growth. The results of this research were published in Scientific Reports.
Cancer treatment based on radiation and anticancer drugs aims to destroy cancer tissue by triggering apoptosis in cancerous cells. However, the treatment itself is thought to be a stress factor that induces cancer cell mutation and subsequent relapse. One such change is the appearance of senescent cells that secrete various proteins, accelerating the proliferation and malignant transformation of surrounding cancer cells.
The research group, including Kobe University’s Professor Shinji Kamada and research fellow Taiki Nagano, treated cancerous cells with varying doses of etoposide, a DNA-damaging anticancer drug. They then used DNA microarrays to identify the genes in which a rise in transcription levels could be observed.
The researchers predicted that the genes which showed increased expression in response to low levels of etoposide were mainly related to cell senescence, while genes expressed in response to high levels of etoposide were mainly those involved in apoptosis. There were 25 genes that showed twice as much expression in the presence of low etoposide compared to high etoposide, which they confirmed were expressed specifically in senescent cells.
According to the study authors, the results of the study may help researchers to develop a drug that targets and regulates the activity of the genes that control senescence. By administering it together with conventional anticancer treatment, the emergence of senescent cells can be limited and the effectiveness of cancer treatment may be increased, they say.
The article can be found at: Nagano et al. (2016) Identification of Cellular Senescence-specific Genes by Comparative Transcriptomics.
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Source: Kobe University.
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