Finland: inhibiting spread of cancer cells

Finnish researchers screened dozens of prostate cancers using gene silencing and discovered mechanisms that inhibit the spread of cancer cells, the Technical Research Center of Finland said on Friday. The study by the research team of the University of Turku and the Technical Research Center of Finland shows that cancer cell adhesive activity, which is easy to measure in a laboratory setting, is directly linked to the ability of the cancer cells to metastasize. As a result, screening for regulators of cancer cell activity can lead to the discovery of new candidates for pharmaceutical development. The study describes dozens of new regulators of cancer cell activity. Employing gene silencing mechanisms on two of these regulators (CD9 and MMP8) was found to have a direct impact on the spread of cancer cells. In the study, researchers used the cell spot microarray technology developed by the Technical Research Center of Finland. The method allows researches to study the impacts of all genes in an entire genome in a single experiment.