Cancer Cell "Bodyguard" Turned into Killer

piggy submitted, created time 1 month 6 days (www.sciencedaily.com)

If you're a cancer cell, you want a protein called Bcl-2 on your side because it decides if you live or die. It's usually a trusted bodyguard, protecting cancer cells from programmed death and allowing them to grow and form tumors. But sometimes it turns into their assassin.

Scientists knew it happened, but they didn't know how to actually cause such a betrayal. Now they do. And it may lead to the development of new cancer-fighting drugs.

Researchers at Oregon State University and the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, Calif., have developed a peptide that converts the Bcl-2 protein from a cancer cell's friend to a foe.

"Now we can force this protein to backstab the cancer cell where it resides," said Siva Kolluri, an assistant professor of cancer biology in the environmental and molecular toxicology department at OSU. He's also the lead author of an article that reported the discovery in the Cancer Cell journal in October.

Keywords: NuBCP-9 cancer oncology Bcl-2 cancer cell