Scientists have found a way to restore pancreatic cancer cells to their original state by introducing a protein, thereby offering a potential novel therapeutic approach to combat this highly lethal disease. "For the first time, we have shown that over-expression of a single gene can reduce the tumor-promoting potential of pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells and reprogram them toward their original cell type," said Pamela Itkin-Ansari, adjunct professor at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in the US. "Pancreatic cancer cells retain a genetic memory which we hope to exploit," Itkin-Ansari said.
The study generated human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cell lines to make higher than normal levels of the protein E47. The increased amount of E47 caused the pancreatic cancer cells to revert back towards normal cells. When the reprogrammed cancer cells were introduced into mice, their…
