PAR-4 Tees Off Lung Cancer

A paper in the EMBO Journal presents the first in vivo mechanistic evidence showing how a deficiency in prostate apoptosis response-4 protein contributes to Ras-induced non-small cell lung cancer. And it identifies the protein and a molecule downstream of it-protein kinase C-z-as potential new targets to treat the indication.¹ Companies contacted by SciBX agreed that the paper reveals a novel role for PAR-4 as a tumor suppressor, but said that translating the findings into a viable therapeutic strategy would be difficult.

The research team included scientists from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine,...