A protein was discovered that prevents the formation of cancer metastases

British researchers have discovered a protein that prevents cancer cells from breaking away from the tumor and forming additional tumors throughout the body. The protein can be used to facilitate cancer treatment and save the need to analyze metastasis after metastasis

Many types of cancer can be treated with simple surgery. The surgeon identifies the location of the tumor inside the body, separates the tumor tissue from the healthy tissue and pulls it out of the body. The main fear in those cases is that the tumor has already metastasized to the rest of the body. These metastases consist of cancer cells that have detached from the original tumor, migrated in the bloodstream and reached other tissues. Thus, a simple tumor that started in the bone tissue, for example, can spread throughout the body. In these cases it is very difficult to treat the cancer, and all the doctors can do, when they operate metastasis after metastasis outside the body, is that the cancer has not had time to send additional metastases to other places.

Fortunately, not all tumors are capable of metastasizing. The tumor cells have to undergo several rare mutations in order to acquire the ability to separate from the tumor and thrive in other tissues. One of those mutations is the one that causes an excess of the protein called Mena - Mena - inside the cell. This protein is found in abnormal amounts within tumors, and is known for its ability to help cancer cells separate from the tumor and form metastases throughout the body.

In a study recently published in the scientific journal Molecular Cell, a group of British scientists describes how they were able to find a protein that paralyzes Mana and thus prevents it from helping to create the metastases. This protein was called Tes. The researchers used a variety of methods to analyze Mana and Tess proteins and to understand their three-dimensional structure and the way in which they connect to each other. The director of the study, Dr. Michael Wei, and his colleagues discovered that Tess binds to mana and thereby paralyzes mana's ability to connect to other proteins. In this respect, Tess is similar to a molecular key - when it is found in large quantities, it is able to 'lock' mana and prevent it from performing its action. When Mana is unable to bind to other proteins, the cancer cells in which it is found cannot migrate out of the tumor.

The main innovation in the research comes from understanding the way in which the two proteins manage to connect to each other. When researchers design new drugs, they try to design their molecular structure so that they bind to the right proteins and silence them. The Tess protein binds to Mana in an unexpected way, thus opening the door to a new class of drugs that mimic the way Tess is able to bind to Mana.

Doctor Leslie Walker, director of scientific information at the British Cancer Research Institute in London, says that, "Cancer cells use many complex processes when they break away from their tumor and spread to other areas of the body.

"Understanding these mechanisms and expanding our knowledge about this protein can hopefully help us develop more effective cancer treatments in the future."

To the abstract of the scientific article