Naturally Occuring Protein May Fight Lung Cancers

[RandyW]

Naturally Occuring Protein May Fight Lung Cancers

June 23, 2006 9:50 a.m. EST

Mary K. Brunskill - All Headline News Staff Writer

Washington DC (AHN) - According to new research the naturally occurring protein HLJ1 may suppress tumors or prevent cancer cells from reproducing in non-small-cell lung cancer. The American Cancer Society reports about 85 percent of lung malignancies are classified as non-small-cell lung cancers.

HealthDay News reports researchers at National Taiwan University studied 71 people diagnosed with non-small-cell cancer. They found that when HLJ1 was increased in lung cancer cells, there were differences in terms of tumor proliferation.

If a cell received increased exposure to HLJ1, there was a decrease in cell division in the tumor, suggesting the natural protein suppresses tumors. Sometimes an increase in HLJ1 seemed to prevent cancer cells from producing at all, the researchers explain in the June 21 issue of the National Cancer Institute.

Adriana Albini and Ulrich Pfeffer of the National Cancer Research Institute in Genova, Italy, say the findings "will further stimulate scrutiny of the (proteins in the same family as HLJ1) and put cancer invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis back on the list of functions inhibited by oncosuppressor genes in lung and perhaps other organs."