BMH-21 Small Molecule Shows Promise As Anti-cancer Therapy
Monday, January 13, 2014 - 17:40
in Biology & Nature
A little studied chemical compound dubbed BMH-21 targets and shuts down a common cancer process in laboratory-grown human tumor cell lines. BMH-21 disrupted tumor cell division and prevented growth of advanced cancer cells. Johns Hopkins researcher Marikki Laiho, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues focused on the ability ofBMH-21 to sabotage the transcription pathway RNA Polymerase pathway (POL I), shutting down the ability of mutant cancer genes to communicate with cells and replicate. Their research linked the pathway to p53 gene activity. P53 is a tumor suppressor gene, a protein that regulates cell growth, and it is the most frequently mutated suppressor gene in cancer. read more