Researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre have completed a critical step in the journey from a basic science discovery in the lab to a potential clinical application, showing that an experimental agent prevents tumour growth and spread in mice with prostate cancer harbouring a common chromosomal abnormality.
Published online in PLOS ONE, the scientists say the agent, YK-4-279, is the first drug targeted at the chromosomal translocations found in about half of prostate cancer cells. These translocations occur when two normal genes break off from a chromosome and fuse together in a new location. This so-called ETS fusion produces new genes that manufacture proteins, which then push prostate cancer cells to become more aggressive and spread.
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