Information about Prostate Cancer

A Protein Named JAK Helps Cancer Cells Spread

The journal 'Cancer Cell' of August 2011 carried a research paper published by the University of Nice, France, The Institute of Cancer Research, London and INSERM, France. This research study told about  the identification of a protein named JAK that helps the spread of cancer in the body.

How Cancer Spreads?

Localized cancer is easier to treat than metastasized cancer. As such about 90 percent of the deaths caused by cancer are due to the spread of cancer to other parts of the body. This is because it becomes difficult to target and kills the cancer cells when they settle in multiple locations across the body and hence, the cancer easily overwhelms the healthy tissues and death occurs.

Finding the answer to this question could offer a solution to stop cancer from spreading to other parts of the body. The researchers found that a protein called JAK assists the cancer cell to navigate from one point to another. When activated or switched on this JAK protein causes the cancer cell to contract thereby making it smaller. Reduced in size, this cancer cell squeezes out of the mother tumor and moves to another tissue or organ.

The Significance Of Identifying The JAK Protein

Metastasis is the most dreaded development of cancer. When this occurs, doctors give up hope, since killing these fast-spreading cancer cells means killing living tissue as well. Death follows soon after such development. The researchers hoped that with the identification of JAK and based on the understanding of its function, they could block it and ensure that the cancer no longer spreads in the body.

If this attempt is successful with the help of drugs that inhibit the 'switching on' of the JAK protein, it means that the treatment of cancer becomes easier and the chances to win the battle against increase exponentially. As Dr Lesley Walker member of the research team said, "Discovering how cancer cells can funnel grooves though tissues, to squeeze away from primary tumors and spread to new sites, gives scientists fresh understanding of ways to stop cancer spread - literally in its tracks."

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