Obscure protein identified as potential key in fight against cancer

By Georgia Lambert via SWNS

An "obscure" protein has been identified as a potential key in the fight against cancer.

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is an aggressive form of cancer that affects the body's white blood cells and is resistant to most treatments.

Although little is known about how to effectively treat the condition, Professor Christopher Vakoc and doctoral student Sofya Polyanskaya from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in Cold Spring Harbor, New York found that AML cells rely on a protein called SCP4 to survive in the body.

This discovery has pointed researchers to a potential new therapeutic approach for the deadly disease.

SCP4 is a phosphatase, which is a type of protein that regulates cell activity by taking phosphates off other proteins.

Another type of protein called kinase puts the lost phosphates back on.

According to the researchers, the number of phosphates added to or taken away from a protein determines its activity.

Polyanskaya discovered that SCP4 could pair with either one of two similar kinases called STK35 and PDIK1L.

The researchers went on to explain that because acute myeloid leukaemia cells need the phosphatase and kinases to work together to survive, switching off the gene that produces SCP4 kills off the cancer cells.

Little is known about this protein and Polyanskaya was surprised to find only 12 scientific papers that mention it.

Of those papers, none discussed how big of a role the protein has in the fight against cancer.

"When you encounter something that was never previously studied in the context of cancer or hasn’t been understood at all, it’s very interesting," she said.

The researchers think that SCP4 may be the control room for an important metabolic pathway on which AML cells depend.

Therefore, drugs and therapies directed against the SCP4 protein could starve and kill the cancer cells, while allowing other healthy blood cells to grow.

Because other phosphatases have been the subject of targeted treatments before, this approach is a promising step in the right direction.

Polyanskaya admitted that although deciding to study SCP4 was risky, it has all paid off now its role in leukemia has been discovered.

“Other researchers can use this system and tweak some other things to really try and pinpoint the exact pathway," she said.

"This work underscores the importance of fundamental research for discovering future therapies.”

The findings were published in the journal Cell Reports.