The p53 protein protects our cells from cancer and is an interesting target for cancer treatments. The problem is, however, that it breaks down rapidly in the cell. Researchers have now found an unusual way of stabilizing the protein and making it more potent. By adding a spider silk protein to p53, they show that it is possible to create a protein that is more stable and capable of killing cancer cells.
The p53 protein protects our cells from cancer and is an interesting target for cancer treatments. The problem is, however, that it breaks down rapidly in the cell. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have now found an unusual way of stabilising the protein and making it more potent. By adding a spider silk protein to p53, they show that it is possible to create a protein that is more stable and capable of killing cancer cells. The study is published in the journal Structure. P53 plays a key role in the body's defence against cancer, in part by discovering and preventing genetic mutations that can lead to cancer. If a cell is lacking functional p53, it quickly becomes a cancer cell that starts to divide uncontrollably. Researchers around the world are therefore trying to develop cancer treatments that in some way target p53. "The problem is that cells only make small amounts of p53 and then quickly break it down as it is a very large and disordered protein," says the study's last author Michael Landreh, researcher at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet. "We've been inspired by how nature creates stable proteins and have used…