Key Discovery Could Make Radiation Therapy More Effective in Cancer Patients

Investigators at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have made a key discovery that could make radiation therapy more effective in cancer patients. This is according to a new research paper published in the prestigious cell biological journal Molecular and Cellular Biology.

Radiation therapy aims at destroying tumors by hitting them with high-energy radiation. A key in making radiation treatment effective is being able to access tumors effectively.

Radiation oncologists are always looking for ways to increase the effectiveness of radiation therapy. One way to do that is to increase the sensitiveness of tumors to the radiation

It seems that researches, led by Dr. Gupta, have found a new way to do that. He and his colleagues report the discovery of an enzyme, called MOF that could help make tumors more susceptible to the radiation killing power.

The enzyme MOF controls how the genetic material of the cell (DNA) is assembled and stored within a cell. It is a key component in cell development and growth so it is related to the development of tumors and cancer. According to the authors of the paper is possible to manipulate this MOF enzyme to make tumors more sensitive to radiation.

What does MOF do? MOF acts by adding a chemical signal to the material that hold the long chains of DNA (DNA is a double helix hold together by some kind of spools). These spools are made off proteins called histones. MOF adds something to this spools that makes the DNA structure more relaxed.

If the cells do not have the enzyme MOF they will inevitably die since this enzyme is a key component in DNA assembling and packing.

Dr. Gupta a researchers believe that if tumorous cells could by somehow depleted of MOF they could kill the cancerous cells and hence the tumor. Basically by targeting MOF in Cancer cells (but not in healthy cells) the tumor will die.

They also found that cells with less MOF were more sensitive to radiation exposure. So a key in making radiation therapy more effective is finding ways to deplete cancerous cells of MOF. Researchers are working hard to identify inhibitors of MOF.