Environmental stress can cause cancer

AUGUSTA, Ga., Nov. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have discovered environmental stresses can result in cancer development by reducing the activity level of an enzyme that causes cell death.

Researchers led by Yonghua Yang, a postdoctoral fellow at the Medical College of Georgia Cancer Center, found stress-inducing agents, such as oxidative stress, recruit a protein called SENP1 that cuts a regulator called SUMO1 from the enzyme SIRT1 so its activity level drops.

Yang said that finding opens the door for treatments that increase SENP1 activity, making it easier for cells that are becoming cancerous to die.

"This is one of the things that make cancer cells so durable, one way they survive so well," said Yang. "We want to see if we can block that process and make cells die."

He noted increased SIRT1 activity -- routinely present in cancer -- even makes cancer cells more resistant to anti-cancer drugs such as chemotherapy.

The study is detailed in the journal Nature Cell Biology.