SYDNEY, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Researchers in Australia have found a promising new approach to treating some aggressive types of cancers which can be very hard to cure.
Researchers at Children's Medical Research Institute (CMRI) in Australia studied proteins that drive the growth of cancers such as neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer, and glioblastoma, one of the most dangerous and fast-growing brain cancers, a CMRI statement said Friday.
A major challenge with these cancers is that they often become resistant to treatment, it said.
Scientists found that a group of cancer-promoting proteins called EYA proteins work closely with another protein called PLK1 to keep tumor cells alive. They found that if both of these proteins are blocked at the same time, the cancer cells cannot survive. This is known as a synthetic lethal interaction, meaning the cancer cells depend on these two proteins, and losing both is fatal to them.
The study, published in Genes & Development, investigated drugs that can block this pair of proteins, revealing a new way to target cancer cells that have become resistant to other treatments, the statement said. ■