HOUSTON, March 20 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have found an overexpressed protein protects pancreatic cancer cells from self-destructing, negating one of the body's natural defenses.
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center researchers said the protein tissue transglutaminase, or TG2, previously was found to be overexpressed in a variety of drug-resistant cancer cells and in metastasized cancer.
"In general, you rarely see overexpression of TG2 in a normal cell," said Kapil Mehta, an experimental therapeutics professor who has been studying TG2 for 10 years.
Mehta and colleagues have linked TG2 overexpression to drug-resistant and metastatic breast cancer, pancreatic cancer and melanoma.
Up to now, the mechanisms by which TG2 promoted drug resistance and metastasis have been unknown. But Mehta and colleagues have shown inhibiting the protein in pancreatic cancer cells leads to a form of programmed cell suicide called autophyagy.
"Targeting TG2, or its activating protein PKC, or both, presents a novel and potentially effective approach to treating patients with pancreatic cancer," study co-author Dr. Gabriel Lopez-Berestein said, cautioning research in the mouse model remains in the early stages.
The study is reported in the March issue of Molecular Cancer Research.
