Study: Gene defects cause lung tumors

Chapel Hill, N.C. -- A U.S. study has identified a tumor suppressor gene known as LKB1 that is mutated in nearly a quarter of all human lung cancers.

Although cancer causing mutations occur in our bodies every day, humans have specific genes that recognize such malignant events and keep cells from growing out of control, researchers said. But only a few such tumor suppressors are currently known.

Now scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School have found mutations of LKB1 in mice result in tumors that are more aggressive and more likely to spread throughout the body.

"Defects in this gene appear to result in a much nastier form of lung cancer, a disease that is bad to begin with," said Dr. Norman Sharpless, an assistant professor of medicine and senior author of the study.

The finding is expected to help physicians better assign a prognosis to their patients, as well as giving them a new target for future therapies, Sharpless said.

The study, published online in the journal Nature, also presents the first mouse model of the most lethal malignancy in man, a form of lung cancer called squamous cell carcinoma.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International.