After studying human tissue samples, they found that Fbx4, a naturally occurring enzyme, plays an important role in stopping another protein called Cyclin D1 that scientists think contributes to the early stages of cancer development.
The discovery was made by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and findings published in a recent issue of Cancer Cell.
J. Alan Diehl, PhD, Associate Professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, screened 116 esophageal tumors for the study and found 16 mutations.
"When Fbx4 is inactivated, it permits the accumulation of its target, CyclinD1," Diehl said in a statement.
Diehl explains that those findings were very important because it show how Cyclin D1 becomes so prevalent in tumors. Before this study, researchers thought that Cyclin D1 was present because of a mutation somewhere in the DNA of a cell.
But this breakthrough study reveals that Cyclin D1 naturally occurs, but that because human bodies have created a natural defense mechanism, that breaks it down before cancer develops.
