07 Mar Can Down syndrome cure cancer?
Posted at 11:17h
in Health
This winter, Contrarian hosted an interesting discussion about whether Down syndrome needs a cure. Now reader Denis Falvy offers an intriguing footnote. It seems that people with Down syndrome rarely get tumors.
Recent research at Children’s Hospital in Boston, reported in the journal Nature, suggests that a gene (gene 231) on the extra chromosome (chromosome 21) carried by people with DS may inhibit cancer by blocking the activity of a protein tumors need to grow. Money quote:
The gene suppresses the growth of new blood vessels that cancers need by blocking the activity of the protein calcineurin, suggesting a new target for future cancer drugs. The investigators… add that chromosome 21 might possess four or five anti-angiogenesis genes.