2023-05-15 08:33:30
The goal is to create a new type of cancer treatment.
Scientists from the Andalusian Center for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine in Seville (Cabimer), led by Andrés Aguilera, are investigating the mechanisms that promote genomic instability, which causes normal cells to transform into tumor cells. As far as is known, this instability stems from a series of mutations in genes related, above all, to cell proliferation or division, which occurs after a cell duplicates its genetic material to give rise to two daughter cells with the same genome. .
“Normally, genomes are transmitted reliably from a cell to its descendants, but sometimes the genetic material mutates due to external or internal factors. If this mutation occurs, for example, in genes involved in DNA replication during cell division, or affects proteins that repair DNA errors, the cells can become tumors”, adds the scientist.
Aguilera discovered that not only mutations that affect proteins involved in DNA replication and repair can lead to the transformation of normal cells into tumor cells. Mutations that alter the function of RNA metabolism proteins can also promote such cell failure and lead to the formation of tangles of DNA and RNA, or R-loops, that prevent cells from functioning properly, cause genomic instability, and potentially, favor the development of tumors.
Aguilera studies these mechanisms to determine which cancers accumulate mutations in RNA metabolism, while looking for an Achilles heel in tumor cells to attack them not only with chemotherapy or radiotherapy, but also with other therapies that target cells prone to form these loops of DNA and RNA.
“Although what moves our research is a tragedy, we must understand the mechanisms to be able to act and prevent it from continuing to be so,” says the scientist. Isabel Troytino
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