Scientists in the U.S. have uncovered a previously unknown molecular pathway in ovarian cancer, which could lead to new therapeutic strategies that target a cancer-promoting mutant form of the tumor suppressor protein p53, known as p53-R175H. The team at Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has shown that inhibiting a deubiquitinase (DUB) known as USP15 allows the clump-forming mutant p53 to be tagged for degradation, which leads to increased cancer cell death. “Our findings offer a new opportunity for regulating mutant p53-R175H by developing drugs that inhibit USP15," says lead researcher Joanne Richards, Ph.D., professor of molecular and cellular biology and member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine. "A possible future scenario in the clinic could be to use DNA analysis to determine whether this p53 mutation is present in a patient's tumor. If ...
Original Article: Newly Uncovered Pathway Points to New Strategies Against Ovarian Cancer