NATURE AND THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
For papers that will be published online on 14 May 2006
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- SUMO Switches metastasis on and off – Nature Cell Biology
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***********************************NATURE CELL BIOLOGY ***************************
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[16] SUMO switches metastasis on and off
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1415
New players in the process of metastasis of cancer cells are described in a paper in the June issue of Nature Cell Biology. Sung Hee Baek and colleagues also present a novel means of controlling proteins that direct metastasis.
Metastasis is the process by which cancer cells spread from the primary tumour to form secondary tumours at other locations in the body. Understanding how this process is controlled will be instrumental to developing new therapeutic approaches for treating metastatic cancer. The team had previously shown that a protein called reptin is important for shutting down expression of KAI1, a gene that blocks metastasis.
In their new study, the authors report that when another protein called SUMO becomes attached to reptin, it switches reptin’s function so that it turns off KAI1 expression. This is because SUMO promotes the interaction of reptin with other proteins that can shut down KAI1 expression. Removal of SUMO from reptin, on the other hand, activates KAI1 expression. They also found that interfering with the attachment of SUMO to reptin changes the metastatic ability of tumour cells.
This study reveals new factors that control metastasis and could potentially be targets for therapeutic intervention.
Author contact:
Sung Hee Baek (Seoul National University, South Korea)
Tel: +82 2 880 9078; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Cell Biology to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[17] A global analysis of cross-talk in a mammalian cellular signalling network
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1418
[18] Blimp1 associates with Prmt5 and directs histone arginine methylation in mouse germ cells
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1413
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