Stem cell proteins could play an important role in healing blood cancer

Bengaluru: The researchers identified a stem cell protein that can play an important role in healing blood cancer. The study, performed on mice, suggests that a stem cell protein called Asrij is a new regulator of p53 stability suppressing wild-type tumors in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs).

Researchers, including Maneesha S. Inamdar of the Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) in Bengaluru, could help design targeted therapies for myeloproliferative disease, a group of slow-growing blood cancers

"We are providing a novel mouse model that resembles myeloproliferative disease and identify a post-translational wild-type p53 regulator essential for maintaining quiescence of HSCs that could be a potential target for pharmacological intervention," said the report. ;team.

According to the study, published in the journal Blood, the inactivation of the p53 tumor suppressor is essential to the uncontrolled growth of cancers. But only 11% of the hematological malignancies have a mutant p53.

The study suggests that the mechanisms responsible for wild-type p53 dysfunction and the promotion of leukemia are poorly deciphered. The Asrij stem cell protein is poorly expressed in many human hematological malignancies and is involved in the p53 pathway and in the DNA damage response, the team said.

For the study, the team generated the first null Asrij (knockout, KO) in the mouse and showed that it was viable and fertile, with no obvious flaw. However, at six months, they had an increase in the number of peripheral blood cells, splenomegaly and bone marrow HSC expansion with higher myeloid flow.