THE latest breakthrough in cancer cell biology was made possible by the help of UWA researchers, providing critical reagents for experiments looking at the regulation of Src, a gene that produces a protein involved in cancer development. The work, entitled ‘Autophagic targeting of Src promotes cancer cell survival following reduced FAK signalling’, was published online today by Nature Cell Biology.
The Src gene product is found in many different tumour types, but while the tumour cell is dependent on Src for survival, too much Src product in the wrong place can actually kill the cancer cell.
Most importantly, the study revealed that inhibiting the Cbl-mediated autophagy of Src, by removing functional Cbl from the system, lead to cell death, raising the possibility of autophaghy inhibition as a means of killing cancer cells. Read more…
