In a biological rendition of fiction's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, researchers from the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida and Harvard Medical School have found that a protein thought to protect against cancer development can actually spur the spread of tumors.
The scientists, reporting in the Sept. 3 issue of Molecular and Cellular Biology, found that FOXO3a, a transcription factor that regulates gene expression, becomes active when growing cancer cells begin to starve.
"This is a complete reversal of what everyone thought about FOXO3a — that we should find a way to activate this transcription factor so as to fight cancer growth," says cancer biologist Peter Storz, Ph.D., the study's lead investigator from Mayo Clinic in Florida.
ScienceDaily, 09/04/09