NCI Researchers Uncover Unusual Association Between Cell Survival Proteins and Ovarian Cancer Aggressiveness

An international scientific team led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, has found that the elevated levels of certain proteins typically associated with keeping cancer cells alive may actually correspond with improved patient survival in ovarian cancer.
The research team, which included scientists at the Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet Medical Centre in Oslo, Norway, set out to understand the relationships between clinical aggressiveness in ovarian tumors and expression levels of both proteins within the BAG protein family (a collection of proteins that block apoptosis and promote cell survival) and proteins with which they interact, namely members of the Bcl-2 (another group of anti-apoptotic proteins) and Hsp (proteins expressed in response to cellular stress) families.

Article in Pubmed

Tags: Research //