The study was published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology and was coordinated by Claudio Sette along with Pamela Bielli, and conducted by Marco Pieraccioli.
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A group of Italian researchers has discovered a mechanism that promotes the development of prostate cancer. This, if rendered harmless, causes the growth of cancer cells to stop. The study, coordinated by Claudio Sette, Professor of Human Anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the Catholic University, Pamela Bielli, Professor of Human Anatomy at the University of Tor Vergata, and conducted by Marco Pieraccioli of the Department of Neuroscience at the Catholic University – Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, was published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
What the Italian study says
At the heart of this mechanism that enables tumor development, the Italian study says, Sam68 and XRN2 are two molecules that promote prostate cell proliferation by disrupting messenger RNAs, key molecules that contain the genetic code for protein synthesis. In detail, this disintegration occurs when Sam68 and XRN2 are deposited on messenger RNAs: here they facilitate the production of shorter and more efficient RNAs, which, however, cause the tumor to metastasize. “Since a class of drugs called antisense oligonucleotides (a kind of genetic patches that attach to messenger RNAs and render them harmless) are already in clinical use against some diseases, we hypothesize that the development of specific antisense oligonucleotides would The perspective is therefore to develop tools to block the activity of Sam68 and XRN2 and neutralize the oncogenic molecular mechanism. The road in this direction is of course still long,” says Claudio Sette.
What is messenger RNA
Messenger RNA, known by its abbreviation mRNA, is a type of RNA whose task is to the genetic information present in the DNA from the nucleus (if it is a eukaryotic organism) to the ribosomes where it is then translated into proteins. mRNA is very unstable and has a fairly rapid turnover. Recently used in anti-Covid vaccines, there are several types: in addition to the messenger, we find transport RNA (or transfer RNA or tRna), ribosomal RNA (or ribosomal RNA or rRna) and small nuclear RNA (or small nuclear RNA or snRNA).
Source: TG 24 Sky
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