Harvard researchers have discovered a new cause of cancer

The breakthrough came when Harvard researcher Megan Enscow discovered a tumor suppressor gene called CDK13 while studying zebrafish.

Changes in the gene seem to drive the development of a special type of skin cancer, called melanoma, which can spread to other areas of the body.

When Megan Enscow and colleagues later compared the results to human cancers, they discovered that 21 percent of the melanoma tumors they examined also had mutations in CDK13 or proteins associated with the gene.

Broken vacuum cleaner

The cause is likely to appear in the function of the gene in the body. When they looked closely, the researchers could see that CDK13 is part of a kind of clearing system in cells, which takes care of clearing out messengers of damaged genetic information, so-called RNA molecules.

But mutations in the gene seem to stop the cleaning action.

“There are hundreds of steps in making RNA, and sometimes it just doesn’t go right,” says Megan Enscow. In a press release.

“These are errors that are usually discarded. In this case, we concluded that the cell didn’t clean it up. The vacuum cleaner broke, so the RNA was about to form,” explains the researcher.

Understanding the small mechanisms that cause cancer is important, but it is only one of the first small steps.

The researcher’s next goal will be to investigate whether they can precisely target new potential therapies to prevent changes in the CDK13 gene.