So far, professionals have aimed at gene transcription levels for treatment of brain tumors. However, scientists from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio have asserted that treatment in terms of post transcriptional regulation may be as effective or better for brain tumor patients.
The analysts claimed that the correlation between 2 RNA-binding proteins namely Musashi1 and HuR can lead to important findings related to gliobastoma development.
Luiz O. F. Penalva, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of cellular and structural biology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, commented, “This is a novel finding in terms of what we know about glioblastoma development. Most of what we know about glioblastoma is limited to gene transcription-level research, but there are other regulatory processes beyond transcription that when disrupted could contribute to tumor formation.”
RNA-binding proteins are supposedly responsible for the regulation of all sorts of cellular mechanisms including translation. Alterations in the levels of their expression or operations may bring about substantial changes to protein generation, thereby instigating diseases such as cancer.
As per laboratory experiments, higher proportions of HuR apparently elevated the expression of an alternative RNA-binding protein called Musashi1. Both the proteins seemingly regulated the activation of cancer related genes. Therefore, interactions between these proteins resulted in 2 crucial gene networks that can have principal outcomes in gliobastoma progression and incidence.
However, the team mentioned that the findings are early as the trial is in its preliminary stage. Nevertheless, the revelations could provide better insight on how brain tumor develops. The research is published in, Molecular Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.