Protein Plays Crucial Role in Certain Thyroid Cancers

A new study from UT Southwestern Medical Center finds a protein once believed to only exist in the brain may fuel a rare but often fatal form of thyroid cancer, but may also provide researchers with a new weapon in the attempt to stop the cancer’s progression.

A multidisciplinary group from the Dallas-based institution found the over-activation of Cdk5—a protein in hormone-secreting cells—helps stimulate medullary thyroid cancer cells in mice as well as in human cells, which makes the protein a potentially good target for therapies to impede the growth of these cancerous cells, according to researchers.

“We found that Cdk5 was present in specific cells of the thyroid called C-cells,” says James Bibb, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and neurology and neurotherapeutics at UT Southwestern.

“We found that it could escape normal cellular control and cause the cancer in both humans and mice, he continues, noting that “we are looking into the use of high-throughput screening for compounds that block the Cdk5 protein pathway.”

Beyond the treatment of medullary thyroid cancer—which typically involves the complete surgical removal of the thyroid—UT Southwestern researchers’ discovery has potential implications for neuroendocrine cancers that occur farther from the brain, including the lung and the pancreas.

“This work is ongoing, and we are now driving toward identifying the downstream mechanisms that cause the growth and spread of these forms of cancer, with the goal of discovering new drugs which we can test in our animal model,” says Bibb.

“We want to work together to translate our insight into treatments to help patients that encounter this disease.”

The study findings originally appeared in Cancer Cell.

—Mark McGraw

Reference:

Pozo K, Castro-Rivera E, et al. The Role of Cdk5 in Neuroendocrine Thyroid Cancer. Cancer Cell. 2013.