A unique signaling mechanism that promotes cell motility has been identified by University of Hawai'i Cancer Center researchers who say this finding improves our understanding of how cancer spreads and may create new opportunities for cancer drug development.
Joe W. Ramos, deputy director of the UH Cancer Center and collaborators were specifically interested in how oncogenes and related signals lead to dysregulation of normal processes within the cell and activate highly mobile and invasive cancer cell behavior.
Their research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) earlier this week, found a mechanism in which the oncogenes turn on RSK2, which is required for cancer cells to move. Ramos and colleagues also found that the RSK2 protein forms a signaling hub that includes LARG and RhoA. Taken together, these findings advance our understanding of cell motility, RSK kinase function, and LARG/RhoA.
"These new data are very exciting. Blocking cancer invasion and metastasis remains a central challenge in treating patients. We anticipate that this research may lead to new therapeutic opportunities for brain tumors, melanoma, and breast cancer among others. We are currently focused on these opportunities and developing new compounds to target this signaling hub," said Ramos.