Genetic find holds clue to curing skin cancer

Published on Sunday 27 February 2011 14:31

A GENETIC fault which causes a rare skin cancer to spontaneously heal instead of grow has been uncovered by Scottish scientists.

Cancer researchers from the University of Dundee were part of an international effort to unlock the mechanism behind multiple self-healing squamous epithelioma (MSSE) cancer.

They found faults in a gene called TGFBR1 sent two different messages to surrounding cells depending on the type of cancer and maturity of the tumour.

The gene, said the scientists writing in Nature Genetics, dictates growth and development of the neighbouring cells and can "switch" its own instructions.

Dr David Goudie, Cancer Research UK scientist in the College of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing at the University of Dundee, said: "The unusual behaviour of this tumour has baffled scientists for about 40 years so we're excited to have discovered the genetic faults that cause the disease.

"The gene we've identified controls part of a cell signalling pathway which is faulty in many cancers. We hope that by shedding light on how one rare cancer manages to heal itself we'll understand more about what goes wrong in other types of tumours.

TGFBR1 acts as a "brake" to prevent early tumours of various types from growing. But when the cancers become more advanced and aggressive, the gene can switch and promote the growth and spread of the tumour instead.

An inherited fault in the gene causes patients to develop many small skin cancer tumours and at some point they begin to heal themselves. The Dundee scientists were part of an international team extending from Singapore to California that looked at the DNA of more than 60 people with MSSE and 110 of their unaffected relatives.

Meanwhile, researchers at Queen's University Belfast have revealed that a gene delivered directly into breast cancer cells can cause them to self-destruct.

A gene - called iNOS - was inserted through a nanoparticle 400 times smaller than the width of a human hair, forcing the cells to produce poisonous nitric oxide. This either killed the cells or made them more vulnerable to being destroyed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Dr Helen McCarthy, from Queen's School of Pharmacy, said more study is needed but the technique could be trialled in patients within five years. She said her next goal was to get the nanoparticles into a dried powder that could be easily transported and reconstituted before being administered to patients.

She said: "A major stumbling block to using gene therapy in the past has been the lack of an effective delivery system. In the long term, I see this being used to treat people with metastatic breast cancer that has spread to the bones, ideally administered before radiotherapy and chemotherapy."

The study is published in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics today.