Fusing a transport protein to p53, a well known transcription factor with tumor-suppressing activity, improves the antitumor abilities of p53, according to a report published in the August issue of Gastroenterology.
About half of all human cancers have been shown to harbor a mutation or deletion of the p53 gene. Previous reports indicate that p53 gene therapy can induce cancer cell apoptosis and increase sensitivity to chemotherapeutic agents. Still, the effectiveness of p53 gene therapy seen in test settings has not been replicated in clinical trials, perhaps because of poor transport into the target cancer cells.
In the current study, Dr. Stefan Kubicka, from Medical School Hannover in Germany, and colleagues decided to combine p53 with a transport protein in the hopes of improving the delivery of p53 to liver cancer cells. Previous reports have shown that the protein, known as VP22, plays an important role in intercellular transport.
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