Washington, Jan 18 (Inditop.com) Most skin cancers are curable, but require surgery that can be painful and scarring, says a new study whose findings could open up ways to newer treatments that would shrink skin cancer tumours.
The drugs would work by turning on a gene that prevents skin cells from becoming cancerous, said senior study author Mitchell Denning, pathology professor at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine (LUCSSM).
The study was done by researchers of the Loyola University Health System (LUHS).
More than a million people in the US are diagnosed with skin cancer each year.
LUHS researchers examined a type of skin cancer called squamous cell carcinoma, which accounts for between 200,000 and 300,000 new cases every year.
Squamous cell carcinoma begins in the upper part of the epidermis, the top layer of the skin. Most cases develop on areas that receive lots of sun such as the face, ear, neck, lips and backs of hands.
Sunlight can damage a skin cell’s DNA. Normally, a protein called protein kinase C (PKC) is activated in response to the damage. If the damage is too great to repair, the PKC protein directs the cell to die.
Healthy cells grow and divide in a cell-division cycle. At several checkpoints in this cycle, the cell stops to repair damaged DNA before progressing to the next step in the cycle.
The new study found that PKC gene is responsible for stopping the cell at the checkpoint just before the point when the cell divides.
In squamous cell carcinoma, the PKC gene is turned off. The cell proceeds to divide without first stopping to repair its DNA, thus producing daughter tumour cells.
Denning said a class of drugs called protein kinase inhibitors could potentially shrink tumours by turning the PKC gene back on, said an LUCSSM release.
Several such drugs have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for other cancers. Denning is pursuing grant funding to test such drugs on animal models.
The study was published in the January edition of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
