Protein Changes Function in Mutated Cells

National Cancer Institute (Bethesda, MD, USA) worked with cell cultures of normal (wild type) mouse mast cells and a mutated line where the gene for Kit miscoded an aspartic acid residue. In particular they looked at the consequences of Kit binding to protein kinase delta (PKCdelta), a protein involved in cell signaling. They found that inhibition of PKCdelta reduced the growth of the mutant mouse mast cell line by approximately 40%, while the growth of normal mast cells was not affected. These findings were published in the November 12, 2004, online edition of Blood.

"This work is a promising study on cancer inhibition,” said senior author Dr. Diana Linnekin, a researcher at the [U.S.] National Cancer Institute. "This is the first demonstration of a function change in PKCdelta resulting from an oncogenic mutation in a growth factor receptor.”



Related Links:
U.S. National Cancer Institute