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Fly gene may aid human brain tumor studies

Fri, 06/26/2009 - 01:34 by Salinder Kumar

Singapore -- U.S. and Singaporean scientists say a protein found in a fruit fly's brain, with a counterpart in mammals, can apparently prevent brain tumors from forming.

Researchers at Duke University and the National University of Singapore's Graduate Medical School have found the fruit fly protein PP2A suppresses brain tumor formation and controls the balance of self-renewal and differentiation of neural stem cells, said Assistant Professor Hongyan Wang.

"Given that mechanisms for stem cell division in flies and mammals are likely to be similar, our study on fly PP2A may provide useful insights for certain types of human brain tumors and possibly in a wide variety of cancers," Wang said.

The study -- supported by Duke-NUS funding and by the Singapore Millennium Foundation -- appears online in the journal Development.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.

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