Cure for most lethal gynecologic cancer?

• Position: RNA 506 - Ovarian cancer treatment study - Brief article

An extensive analysis of genomic information was employed by researchers to identify a high-risk cohort of ovarian cancer patients, characterize their tumors, find a potential treatment, and test it in models of the disease--leading to micro RNA 506 (miR-506) as a potential therapeutic candidate for advanced or metastatic ovarian cancer.

"Functional analysis showed that miR-506 is a robust inhibitor of a cellular transition that makes ovarian cancer cells more resistant to treatment and likely to spread. We will continue to investigate this micro RNA as an inhibitor of ovarian cancer metastasis," says pathologist Wei Zhang, senior author of the paper appearing in Cancer Cell.

Micro RNAs do not code for genes like their cousins, the messenger RNAs. They are capable of blocking a gene's activation by plugging up its promoter region or altering its protein after it is expressed.

Cell line experiments demonstrate that miR-506 blocks cancer cells by suppressing a protein crucial to transforming a cell from one type to another associated with cancer invasiveness, metastasis...