Originally published November 10 2005
Researchers identify protein that fights against developing prostate cancer cells
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Research from the University of Rochester has found that a protein known as TAP helps to disrupt the formation of prostate cancer cells.
Called alpha tocopherol associated protein, or TAP, the binding protein is known to perform important cellular functions, such as regulating the synthesis of cholesterol in the liver.
But for the first time, a team at the University of Rochester has found it also disrupts an important signaling pathway in prostate cancer cells and suppresses growth of the cancer.
Further, the protein appears to regulate retention of vitamin E in prostate cancer cells and increases the effect of vitamin E in limiting the proliferation of cancer cells, according to the team led by ShuYuan Yeh, assistant professor of urology and pathology.
The new research, reported in the 1 November issue of Cancer Research (vol 65, issue 21, pp9807-16), shows that expression levels of TAP are significantly lower in prostate cancer than in a normal prostate.
Compared with the high levels of TAP in normal prostate tissue, the protein was significantly reduced in human prostate cancer samples and in several prostate cancer cell lines tested by the Rochester team.
In an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2002, Yeh and her research team showed that vitamin E interferes with two proteins that play a central role in the development of prostate cancer.
The researchers found then that vitamin E disrupts the ability of prostate cancer cells to make both prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and the androgen receptor, a key player in the development and progression of the disease.
"No one really knows how vitamin E works," commented co-author on the new study, Edward Messing.
"TAP may give us insights into how vitamin E works anywhere in the body and why it is a required vitamin."
Messing heads the Rochester part of the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial, designed to test whether either one, or a combination, prevents prostate cancer.
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