BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

Derepressing p73

March 12, 2007 7:00 AM UTC

Although p73 was first shown to induce apoptosis in cancer cells about a decade ago, there has not been much progress in developing therapeutics that selectively target the tumor suppressor. Researchers recently described in The Journal of Clinical Investigation what they said is the first strategy to directly and selectively activate p73. The authors believe this mechanism could be used to develop drugs that will treat a broad range of cancers.

The researchers created 37AA, a 37-amino acid analog of p53 that induced apoptosis in cancer cells. They showed that 37AA worked by blocking iASPP, an inhibitory member of a family of proteins called apoptosis-stimulating protein of p53 (ASPP). ASPP proteins bind with members of the p53 family, including p73. ...