Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a novel drug strategy against colorectal cancer. In the new study, a little-known mouse protein was found to disrupt cancer-causing chemical changes to genes associated with human colorectal cancer cells. The mouse version of the protein, called STELLA, disrupted a key epigenetic factor and impaired tumor growth better than the protein’s human version. By pinpointing the amino acids (building blocks of a protein) responsible for the difference in activity, the research team developed and tested a drug strategy using those amino acids to treat colorectal cancer.
