Sunday, November 23, 2014

New Mechanism for Cell Division Found

A protein known as PKM2 has been proven to control cell division and could possibly lead to the findings of the molecular basis for tumor diagnosis. Zhimin Lu who is a professor of neuro-oncology at the University of Texas conducted a study that showed PKM2 can control gene expression.


Dr.Lu found that during tumor progression PKM2 is released at high levels but it is also important for cell growth. Dr.Lu and his team observed how the PKM2 operates in the tumor development in mice. From this experiment they found that when PKM2 regulates MLC2, a protein coding gene, during cytokinesis, the phosphorylation can play a role in brain tumor development and was also found to control cell division. The research team also found that PKM2 regulates cytokinesis does occur in malignant tumors but has a bad outcome leading to many different cancers. In some tumor cells there are certain proteins that are activated which change the developing patterns and these changes can lead the tumor cells through cycle of progression of PKM2.

These findings are extremely important because it can lead to finding more treatments or even a cure for cancer. If researchers can find out how to stop PKM2 from regulated MLC2 and forming tumor cells then there is a huge possibility of cancer being cured in the future.

Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141121082746.htm

1 comment:

  1. The protein PKM2 does seem promising to the reduce the productions of mutates cell. If the PKM2 regulates cytokineses is there be chance that there are more regulating proteins not yet discovered?

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