Researchers at the Ohio State University have discovered that a molecule implicated in leukemia and lung cancer is also important in muscle repair and in a muscle cancer that strikes mainly children.
The study is published in the current issue of the journal Cancer Cell. It shows that immature muscle cells require the molecule, called miR-29, to become mature, and that the molecule is nearly missing in cells from rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer caused by the proliferation of immature muscle cells.
Cells from human rhabdomyosarcoma tumors showed levels of the molecule that were 10 percent or less of those in normal muscle cells. Artificially raising the level of the molecule in the cancer cells cut their growth by half and caused them to begin maturing, slowing down tumor growth.
MiR-29 is a type of microRNA, a family of molecules that helps regulate the proteins cells produce. Researchers say this study is unusual because it also sheds light on how a microRNA itself is regulated. They discovered that the gene for miR-29 is silenced bythe action of a special protein. Their study shows that this protein is present at high levels in rhabdomyosarcoma cells, and that this keeps miR-29 shut off, preventing muscle progenitor cells from maturing.
"This study shows that there is a connection between this microRNA, muscle development and rhabdomyosarcoma," says lead researcher Denis Guttridge. "The findings should give us a better understanding of muscle repair and development, and of rhabdomyosarcoma, and could lead to new treatments for this and other muscle diseases."
Source:Xinhua
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