Source: Rachel Tompa, UCSF Today
July 18, 2007

Looking for Cancer Clues in the Skeleton of Our Cells

For many infectious diseases, a strategy for drug design is clear: Find something that kills what's causing the disease that won't kill the patient. But what's the best approach when our own cells spread within and make us sick -- as when normal cells turn cancerous?

Drugs that target a disease-causing bacterium or fungus often block the activity of a protein that pathogenic cells need to survive. But most proteins in cancer cells also are present in normal cells. That makes it difficult to target tumor cells without causing harmful side effects in healthy tissue.

The question has no definitive answer. But a new key to fighting cancer might be found in a cell's skeleton or, more precisely, its cytoskeleton, says Thomas Huckaba, PhD. Cytoskeletons in normal cells often differ from those within cancer cells. The cell's "bones" comprise a network of filaments. But unlike the humans in whom they reside, cells can be shape shifters. To make these shape changes possible, the cytoskeleton changes shape in turn -- filaments lengthen and contract.

A cell needs filaments to maintain or change shape, to divide and to transport cargo between different parts within the cell. The largest of these filaments, called microtubules, are made up entirely of the protein tubulin.

Skeletons in the Cancer Cell Closet
Huckaba, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF in the laboratory of Ronald Vale, PhD, believes that a telltale modification of tubulin might be used to distinguish cancer cells from normal cells. If that's true, and if it's possible to track down the source of this modification, it might also be possible to one day use this knowledge to better target cancer cells for destruction.

>> continuation