LONDON (dpa-AFX) - A team of researchers from the U.S. and UK has made a DNA discovery that could cure the pancreatic cancer, giving a glimmer of hope to patients suffering from the disease, touted as one of the deadliest cancers.
Dr Maria Hatziapostolou, a researcher of Nottingham Trent University's John van Geest Cancer Research Centre, said, 'Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival of all the 20 common cancers. The survival of patients beyond five years has improved very little for some time and so it's extremely important that we find new ways to better understand this disease, how it spreads and why it is so aggressive.'
She added, 'This work, which has provided new understanding and knowledge of how the cancer behaves, will hopefully help pave the way for potential new treatments in the future.'
For the study, the scientists analyzed healthy as well as pancreatic cancer tissue samples to find that the cancer triggered a process called DNA methylation, which causes the HNF4A gene to switch off, prompting the tumor to grow quickly.
The HNF4A gene plays an important role in the function of certain tissues and organs in the body. The protein controls genes that are especially important for development and function of beta cells in the pancreas, according to Medlineplus.
Hatziapostolou said, 'Loss of HNF4A drives pancreatic cancer development and aggressiveness and we now know correlates with poor patient survival.'
Dr Chris Macdonald, the head of research at Pancreatic Cancer UK, concluded, 'This project gives us new information on how pancreatic cancer is able to suppress certain molecules to help it spread aggressively around the body which, in turn, could lead to the development of more effective treatment options in the future.'
The study was published in the journal Gastro Hep Advances.
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