University Hospitals of Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University, et. al. other research news
University researchers have found a flaw in the receptor for TGF-beta, an inhibitor of epithelial cell growth, that appears to allow unchecked division of cells in at least some forms of colon cancer. As published in Science, a frameshift mutation was detected in the gene for one of the two subunits of the receptor for TGF-beta, RII.
The mutation is not just an artifact of laboratory culture but also was present in cancerous cells from patients, and absent from the patients' healthy cells. This finding was obtained in three of seven cell lines for which the original cancerous tissues were still available; in two of these, samples of normal tissue also were available. In the affected cells, the RII subunit was missing at the cell surface. ...