OU discovery could slow spread of cancer

By discovering an enzyme that may help tumors spread, University of Oklahoma researchers hope to develop a way to inhibit growth of lung, breast, colon and pancreatic cancers.

OU Health Sciences Center scientists, led by Dr. Patrick McKee, were studying the mechanics of blood clots when they discovered the enzyme called sFAP in plasma and identified the gene that controlled its function. The research appeared in recent issues of Blood and the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

What they found

"One thing all cancer cells need as they grow is something that acts as scaffolding,” McKee said. "They have to attach to the scaffolding to divide and migrate. This enzyme excavates space around a malignancy and helps create the scaffolding.”

The protein helps activate fibroblasts, cells that growing cancer cells recruit and stimulate to multiply within the malignancy. This creates space and the framework on which cancer cells attach, divide and spread.

If the enzyme could be inhibited, then cancer might be slowed or halted. Combined with chemotherapy or radiation, that might actually cure the malignancy, members of the OU team believe.

"You’d be able to hold a cancer in check,” McKee said of the find. "The work has attracted the attention of a number of pharmaceutical companies.”

Investigators hold a patent on the enzyme, and three are under review.

They received a $365,000 grant from the U.S. Defense Department to work on an inhibitor at the University of Arkansas Medical Center.