UICOMR researchers find target for improving lung cancer treatment effectiveness
UICOMR researchers find target for improving lung cancer treatment effectiveness Heading link
Research led by Neelu Puri, PhD, at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford points to certain factors that decrease the long-term effectiveness of lung cancer drugs, which provides a target for overcoming drug resistance and prolonging the life of lung cancer patients. The research paper “PRMT-1 and p120-Catenin as EMT Mediators in Osimertinib Resistance in NSCLC” was published in a special issue of the journal Cancers celebrating the achievements of women in the oncology research area.
Dr. Puri, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, and the researchers in her lab are studying non-small cell lung cancer, a disease diagnosed in about 200,000 Americans annually. Of those, about 80 percent are smokers and a third have epidermal growth factor receptor (EFGR) mutations.
“Blocking epidermal growth factor receptors with such drugs as Osimertinib can prevent non-small lung cancer cells from growing and cut the five-year death toll in half when given after surgery,” says Dr. Puri. “Eventually, resistance to these EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors occurs, however.”
The researchers wanted to see if two proteins called p120-catenin and PRMT-1 contributed to this drug resistance. They found that p120-catenin levels were higher in lung cancer patients who were smokers and it, along with PRMT-1, were overexpressed in cells that were resistant to Osimertinib.
These findings indicate that the two proteins may play an important role in making non-small cell lung cancer more invasive and resistant to Osimertinib. The research also showed that by inhibiting them, they were able to reverse the process of epithelial-mesenchymal transition associated with metastatic cancers and thereby increase the effectiveness of the cancer drug.
“Our study opens new opportunities to explore Osimertinib resistance mechanisms and study novel potential therapeutic targets for non-small cell lung cancer,” says Dr. Puri.
The research team included MBT graduate Kavya Sri Racherla, recent medicine graduate Katrina Dovalovsky, MBT student Meet Patel, research assistant Emma Harper, MBT student Jacob Barnard, MBT student SM Nasifuzzaman, undergraduate student Mason Smith, high school student Riya Sikand and Eva Drinka, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Health Sciences Education and a pathologist at UW Health SwedishAmerican Hospital.