A New Therapeutic Molecule Tricks Cancer Cells into "Committing Suicide"
Researchers of the National Genome Research Network have produced a small protein that can trigger programmed cell death in cancer cells. The protein disrupts a signal chain that many cancer cells absolutely need to survive.

They are on the outside of the cells and are coloured green in here: docking sites for messengers - so called "receptors". 



A cell constantly receives signals: there are signals that cause the cell to specialize in a certain task in the organism. Other signals make the cell produce a certain product. Also, to be able to grow and survive, a cell needs the impetus through external signals.

Certain biochemical agents serve as signal transductors, as "messengers". They make contact with the cell by attaching to special docking sites on the surface.

These docking sites can be compared with tiny antennas that can receive a message from the outside and send it further to the inside. Because the docking sites receive the messages, they are called receptors.

Due to the docking the antenna becomes deformed and thus activates tiny signal transductors inside the cell. The protein Stat3 is one of the signal agents that bring the messages into the cell nucleus. There, in the cell nucleus, Stat3 functions like a switch with which certain operating programs can be turned on. When Stat3 is activated – so-to-speak switched on – then it sees to it that the program "growth, survival and proliferation" is running in the cell.

Sometimes it happens that Stat3 remains constantly switched on even when no signal comes from outside. When Stat3 or other signal transductors are overactive, that can have momentous consequences. Then the harmoniously balanced communication with the outside world of the cell gets confused. That can lead to uncontrolled cell proliferation and the onset of cancer.

Page 2: How scientists found a small protein that blocks the signal transductor Stat3 and leads to cell suicide.

 
 
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