Cancer Caused by New Kind of Gene

[Guest guest]

Personally, I doubt they'll find a CURE for cancer this way, but

interesting . . .

 

Cancer Caused by New Kind of Gene

 

It was a few years ago that Croce began to sniff out one of the most

surprising and most promising discoveries in cancer research. The

discovery placed him and his collaborators at the leading edge of a

now-booming field that promises improved techniques for diagnosing

cancer diseases and, they hope, more effective new treatments.

 

Ambros' new gene was truly tiny, only 70 bases long, not 10,000 bases

like

other genes. Stranger still, the gene didn't make a protein, as other

genes

do. Instead, it made another kind of genetic material, which is now

called

microRNA. Traditional genes make RNA also, but that RNA is short-lived,

serving as a mere intermediary in the construction of proteins. But this

microRNA was the gene's end product, and it was no mere messenger.

 

" Every cancer we look at, we find an alteration in microRNA, " says

Croce.

" In probably every human tumor there are alterations in microRNA. " Calin

and Croce were convinced: these two tiny genes made microRNAs that

suppressed

cancer.

 

MicroRNA, Ambros and Ruvkun realized, worked by an intriguing mechanism:

it

acted like a miniature strip of Velcro. Because the microRNA gene

matched

part of a traditional gene, the microRNA stuck to RNA produced by the

traditional gene. In doing so, it blocked the other gene from producing

protein.

 

Read more:

http://snipr.com/n9xqu

 

Of course, the cures for cancer are already largely known, if only the

world were open to them.