Target locked on 'MicroRNA'

On April 15th, Medical News Today released an article called, "'MicroRNA' could be key target for bowel cancer treatment." Scientists have found an important gene that adds fuel to the fire of cancer genes that leads to the growth of bowel cancers, and that gene is called microRNA 135b. The researchers think that certain drugs could stop the effect of multiple cancer prone mutations. Their test included 485 patients with bowel cancer and they tried to find any type of microRNA 135b. What they found was four times as high in tumors than in healthy tissues and those patients with high levels like that lived the shortest amongst other patients. Then the researchers halted microRNA and found that tumor growth depleted, and also found that there were no side effects in the mice that were treated.

MicroRNA are a part of multiple cellular processes and regulate gene activity as well. The study also states that microRNA 135b is used by other cancer mutations (APC, PI3KCA, SRC, and p53). Because of this discovery, testing patients for levels of microRNA 135b might help them catch bowel cancer early to start the necessary treatment for it before it gets too much to handle. In London, Professor Paul Workman--who is the Deputy Chief of Executive of the Institute of Cancer Research--says that this could open new doors in cancer treatment and help identify which patients have a more violent bowel cancer. He also states that this study has shown that microRNA takes over multiple pathways that could go bad in colon cancer and he hopes that this research will also help patients with colon cancer.

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I hope that this new research helps patients across the globe with this type of cancer. I also hope that understanding and inhibiting microRNA 135b will result in a less painful and faster treatment for patients with cancer. I think it's about time that researchers are understanding more and more about cancers and how tumors form and etc. Hopefully in the next coming years we will slowly defeat cancer and this study is a good starting point to that goal.

To read the original article click here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/275501.php

To learn more about bowel cancer click here: http://www.webmd.com/colorectal-cancer/default.htm?names-dropdown=