New pathway could overcome resistance to TKIs in cancer

In a paper published in Cancer Research, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and colleagues discovered that the recently identified ufmylation pathway plays a role in resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), and suggested that promoting expression of genes in that pathway could help treat cancer.

Subsets of cancer cells are known to become resistant to TKIs by undergoing epigenetic changes, but previous studies have shown combining the EGF receptor (EGFR) inhibitor Tarceva elotinib with THZ1, a suppressor of transcription, can eliminate the resistant cells...