Researchers from the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada (ibs.GRANADA), the Pfizer-University of Granada-Andalusian Genomics and Oncology Research Center (GENYO) and the University of Granada have identified that the cells of some leukemias silence the production of the BCL7A protein, a protein that helps prevent cells from becoming tumorous.
"This silencing occurs epigenetically, in a strategy used by tumor cells to get rid of proteins that make it difficult for them to grow uncontrollably and generate cancer," says Juan Rodrigo Patiño Mercau, one of the main authors of the article, and a student at PhD from the University of Granada, currently working on a thesis at the Harvard Medical School.
“Epigenetic silencing is a strategy used by tumor cells to break the brakes on growth. It is an alternative strategy to accumulating mutations, which is the most common strategy. However, epigenetic silencing does not alter the DNA nucleotide sequence, but rather its readability by the cell's machinery” adds Carlos Baliñas Gavira, a doctor graduated from the University of Granada, currently at the Curie Institute in Paris.
“Our laboratory is pioneering the study of a set of genes that alter DNA packaging, of which BCL7A is a part, and of which we are beginning to understand why its activity is necessary so that tumors do not occur. ” indicates Pedro Medina Vico, director of the study, co-investigator responsible for the group Cancer Genetics, Biomarkers and Experimental Therapies of the ibs.GRANADA and professor at the University of Granada who has recently disseminated the line of research of this group in international seminars in the United States (Biomedical Engineering faculty at Harvard University) and Europe (Aarhus University).
Researchers from the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada (ibs.GRANADA) have participated in this study. "Cancer Genetics, Biomarkers and Experimental Therapies”, researchers from the Pfizer Center-University of Granada-Andalusian Board of Genomics and Oncology Research (GENYO), researchers from the University of Granada and the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
This study, which helps to better understand how leukemias are produced, with the ultimate goal of finding new therapeutic strategies, has recently been published in the international journal Biomarkers Research.
This research has been financed mainly by funds contributed by the foundation of the Spanish Association against Cancer, the Junta de Andalucía and the Research Classroom against childhood leukemia "Heroes against leukemia".
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