News Releases
Potential "Weak Link" Between Virus and Liver Cancer Discovered
Janelle Hail at the MD Anderson Cancer Center
Dr. Mien-Chie Hung, Ph.D. of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Clinic with NBCF President, Janelle Hail.
HOUSTON - Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have uncovered a crucial molecular link between a viral infection and development of a common and fatal form of liver cancer. In the process, they have identified a possible way to treat this disease as well as a number of other cancers.
In findings reported in the journal Molecular Cell, the researchers traced the pathway by which the hepatitis B virus (HBV) leads to development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and found that it "turns off" an enzyme known as GSK-3ß, which acts to suppress tumor formation as well as inhibit the spread of cancer.
GSK-3ß could prove to be the Achilles heel for liver cancer and other tumors - including colon, kidney and stomach breast cancer - that use a similar "pathway" to cancer development, the researchers say.
"This study identified a novel mechanism for how hepatitis B primes liver cells to turn cancerous, and what we found has potential relevance for other cancers as well," says the study's lead author Mien-Chie Hung, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology.
Infection from HBV is widespread throughout the world, especially in developing nations, and is considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be a serious global health problem. The virus, transmitted by blood or body fluids, is up to 100 times more infectious than HIV (human immunodeficiency virus).
Scientists have long linked development of HBV to HCC, the most common form of liver cancer. They also believe that this cancer is due to activation of a signaling pathway that includes a protein known as beta catenin. When this protein functions normally, it sits on the outside surface of a cell and helps the cell stick to others like it in a tissue, but when it is found inside the cell's cytoplasm or nucleus, it works to turn on genes involved in cancer development.
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, Kadoorie Charitable Foundation and the National Breast Cancer Foundation.