The Cancer Genetics & Stem Cell research group, led by Dr Abdolrahman Shams Nateri from the Cancer Biology Unit in the School of Medicine, and in collaboration with Professor Ian Tomlinson's laboratory, Wellcome Trust Centre in Oxford, have discovered that the expression of phosphorylated p53 protein is associated with drug resistance in FBXW7-deficient colorectal cancer cells.
Dr Nateri’s team has previously identified that FBXW7 tumour suppressor gene may be critical to the development of intestinal/colon cancers. Their findings, published online this month in Oncotarget journal, suggest that the expression of phospho-p53(S15) may be regulated through FBXW7-mediated degradation.
Dr Nateri said: “Phospho-p53(S15) may allow us to identify intestinal/colon cancers with the FBXW7-mutation”. The phospho-p53(S15) could be used as a biomarker in the molecular characterization of FBXW7-associated cancers and may provide a way of targeting therapy to the disease. The next step will be to understand the cellular mechanisms implicated in the phospho-p53(Ser15)/FBXW7 complex to provide more insight into the underlying mechanisms.
The work was supported by Cancer Research UK (CR-UK) and the fantastic fundraising efforts of Charlotte Sims and her family in memory of Daz Sims.
Publication link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25860929
Posted on Monday 20th April 2015