ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 1, 1996 TAG: 9611010041
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Researchers have found a protein that gives cancer cells a resistance against radiation and chemotherapy by blocking a natural process that usually causes cells to die.
In studies to be published today in the journal Science, three teams of researchers report that laboratory tests show that cancer cells have a protective protein, called nuclear factor kappa B, or NF-KB, that blocks a natural cell-killing action.
The research was conducted at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
Earlier research had found that when cancer is treated with chemotherapy or radiation, the cells are forced to go through a process called apoptosis, a type of cell suicide. Apoptosis is a method that organisms use to kill damaged, worn-out or flawed cells.
The studies showed that NF-KB prevented the cancer cells from going through apoptosis, thus giving cancer a resistance to radiation and chemotherapy.
In the MIT laboratories, researchers blocked the action of NF-KB in both tumor and non-tumor cells. The cells were then treated with tumor necrosis factor, or TNF. Cells of both types were killed.
TNF is a natural cancer cell killer. Earlier studies had shown that cells with active NF-KB could not be killed by TNF.
At Salk, researchers also inhibited NF-KB and found that cancer cells could be more easily killed. The researchers said the work suggests that drugs that block the action of NF-KB could be used to treat both cancer and some bacterial and viral infections.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina blocked the action of NF-KB in cultured tumor cells and found that the cells could be more easily killed by both chemotherapy agents and by radiation.
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