It is possible that a new anti-cancer therapy could be developed based on research coming out of the University of Otago.
The research builds on the University’s earlier discovery that PAX genes, important in embryonic development, also allow cancer cells to grow and divide in adult tissue. By "silencing" the gene expression of PAX2 in ovarian and bladder cancer cells, and of PAX3 in melanoma, the researchers found the cancer cells rapidly died out. The latest findings, published in the British journal, Oncogene, showed that silencing the gene also had dramatic effect on tumour cells, but through a different mechanism.
"The cells were essentially stopped in their tracks through the failure of multiple mechanisms and pathways crucial to their cell division cycle," Professor Michael Eccles, director of the University of Otago developmental genetics and pathology group, told the Otago Daily Times. The cells then stopped dividing and ultimately died.
New cancer research from Otago
