South Asia Times News Bulletin

An enzyme HtrA2 that can clean cancer cells of a gene is believed to be responsible for deadly diseases discovered by U.K doctors.
Dr Jorg Hartkamp and Dr Stefan Roberts have found that the protease HtrA2 enzyme can "clean" cells of the oncogene -- WT1 -- which is found at high levels in many leukaemias and solid cancers such as breast and lung cancer.

They will work on developing new drugs for all these cancers which will help in elevate WT1 expression.

WT1 cancer was discovered 20 years ago, it is a rare kind of cancer that effects one in 10,000 children.

It suppresses the wilms tumour of the kidney. However it has a cancer causing role in other forms of the disease, particularly leukaemias such as acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML).

Dr Hartkamp from the University of Manchester said: "The cancer causing role of WT1 has been known for many years, but how it worked was not understood so we studied a regulatory domain of WT1 to see what modified its activity.

We carried out a fishing experiment and discovered the role of the protease HtrA2 instead, by accident. This discovery has a much bigger impact".

We have filled in the black box of WT1. It is this protease that is doing the trick it can clean cells of WT1.

Dr Roberts from University at Buffalo, added: "There are great prognostic implications in leukaemias but this protease may have even more targets.

It is unlikely that a protease cleaves only one transcription factor such as WT1".

Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: "This research sheds new light about how levels of WT1 are controlled and will help us understand more about its role in cancer.

This research is on early stage and hopefully it will improve treatment of types of cancer.