NEW HAVEN, Conn., Sept. 24 (UPI) -- U.S. and Chinese scientists say a piece of genetic material with no previously known function might hold the key to being able to stop the spread of cancer.
Researchers at Yale University's School of Medicine and Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, found in a study of mice an RNA molecule that can bind to and block the function of proto-oncogenes -- genes that have the potential to trigger cancer.
The researchers, led by Professor Alan Garen at Yale and Xu Song in China, said one mechanism that stops cell proliferation is a family of tumor-suppressor proteins. The TSP protein they discovered, called PSF, is virtually identical in mice and humans, they said.
The Yale team said it succeeded in preventing the formation of tumors in mice by either increasing the amount of PSF or decreasing the amount of the non-coding RNA in a cell.
"The tumor cell stops proliferating and the tumor regresses in a mouse model of cancer, suggesting that both procedures could be the basis of a clinical protocol," said Garen.
The study appeared in the Sept. 11 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
