Research report 2010 - Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine

Ion channel as target for cancer therapy … or how you drive tumor cells into suicide!

Authors
Hartung, Franziska; Stühmer, Walter; Pardo, Luis A.
Departments
Molekulare Biologie Neuronaler Signale (Stühmer)
Onkophysiologie (Pardo)
Max-Planck-Institut für experimentelle Medizin, Göttingen
Summary
Tumor therapy relies on tumor markers for the specific destruction of tumor cells. Max Planck scientists discovered and characterized a potassium channel (Eag1) as a new tumor marker [1, 2]. This channel was used to bind a cell-death inducing mediator TRAIL to cancer cells. In cell culture they could show suicide activation, specifically in the Eag1 positive prostate cancer cells. Cell death could also be induced in neighboring Eag1 negative prostate cancer cells, whereas normal prostate cells were unaffected.

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