Professor Philip Rudland, Dr Guozheng Wang and Dr Roger Barraclough from the University's Cancer and Polio Research Fund Laboratories have discovered an additional member of the S100 family of protein genes S100P that causes the spread of cancerous cells from an original tumour to other parts of the body.

If present in the primary tumour, metastagenes such as S100P trigger the rapid spread of cancerous secondary tumours to other tissues in the body via the bloodstream a process known as metastasis. Although primary tumours can be removed surgically, secondary tumours are more difficult to control. This research has been funded by the Cancer and Polio Research Fund.

The new discovery builds on several years' work carried out at the University to investigate the genes that cause cancerous tumours to travel to other tissues in the body. To date, three other metastasis-inducing genes have been discovered S100A4, osteopontin, and more recently, AGR2.

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are often the only options available to treat secondary tumours but these procedures can be problematic to the patient as they can damage other healthy tissue and do not always succeed in eradicating the cancer.

S100P is commonly found in ten different types of normal tissue including the placenta, spleen, colon, ovary, prostate, lung and heart. Scientists believe proteins like S100P function in healthy tissue by increasing the movement of white blood cells around the body. If the protein is found in a cancerous tumour however, it causes the tumour to spread to other tissues.

Professor Rudland said: "It is the spread of cancer from the initial tumour that is the key contributor to death of a cancer patient. Metastagenes are fundamental to this process and can be found in most common cancers, including breast, lung and colon. I
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Contact: Joanna Robotham
joanna.robotham@liv.ac.uk
44-151-794-2026
University of Liverpool
29-Mar-2006