Scientists Discover New Targets for the Treatment of Blood Cancers

A recent study looks at new targets for the treatment of blood cancer.

Researchers studied the cancer protein STAT5, which scientists found new opportunities for through the development of effective anti-cancer drugs.

As proteins in cells transfer signals within a cell from one protein to another in order to ensure cell growth and survival, researchers tested to find out what might happen if they blocked the transfer, which in turn, would block the proliferation of cancer cells.

Lead study author Veronika Sexl from the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Vetmeduni Vienna used leukemia as a model disease to study the protein. Researchers shutdown two distinct signals of STAT5 that led to a significantly later progession of the disease in mice when compared to other control groups involved in the study that did not contain the signals of STAT5.

"The shutdown of the site Serin779 on STAT5 makes it impossible for STAT5 to fulfil its role as a relay runner and migrate into the nucleus. Thus, the effect of STAT5 is inhibited", Hölbl-Kovacic, one of the lead authors said, via a press release. 

Co-study author Angelika Berger also performed a large-scale screening that involves relay runners that act before Serin779, the so-called PAK (p21 activated kinase.)

As PAK carries control over SAT5 and activates it, by inhibiting PAK, researchers found that SAT5 stayed turned off and disconnected from those in the relay race. Cancer researchers also found that PAK is still active when cancer cells have already been treated by the current therapeutic treatment Imantinib.

"So far, the PAK kinases have received relatively little attention in cancer therapy. However, they could be beneficial for a wide range of applications," Berger said, via the release. "All types of cancers, in which STAT5 plays a role, could be treated by this system in a new way. Those are the leukemias but also a number of other diseases such as breast cancer or prostate cancer."

More information regardnig the study can be found via journal Leukemia.