Toxic Protein Targets Cancer Cell COX-2 Synthesis

A study exploring how cancer cells grow and spread has shown that the protein cytidine uridine guanosine binding protein-2 (CUGBP2) exerts a cytotoxic effect on cancer cells by interfering with the expression of cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX-2). The findings were reported in the January 17, 2003, issue of Molecular Cell.

Investigators from the Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis, MO, USA) employed genetic engineering techniques to insert the gene for CUGPB2 into several different types of cancer cells growing in culture. They found that more than 70% of tumor cells could not survive when CUGBP2 was active. The target of CUGBP2 activity was shown to be the messenger RNA that coded for the production of COX-2. Significantly, CUGBP2 had no effect on normal cells.

"The gene that produces COX-2 is turned on very early in cancer, so there has been a lot of research to see whether interfering with it might be an effective therapy,” explained senior author Dr. Shrikant Anant, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at Washington University School of Medicine. "When CUGBP2 is introduced, there are a number of molecular derangements that take place in the cancer cell that make it susceptible to death. In the future, it may be possible to use this protein as a means of killing tumor cells without harming normal cells because normal cells already produce significant amounts of the protein.”




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