UK charity finds protein that could prevent cancer

Cancer Research UK, the largest research charity in Britain to be funded from private donations, has published the discovery of a crucial protein called RTEL1, that could prevent cells from becoming vulnerable to cancer, in the journal Cell.

"Studies in yeast have previously identified the Srs2 protein as a critical regulator of DNA repair events essential for maintaining chromosome integrity. Despite 30 years of research, an equivalent of Srs2 in humans has remained elusive," lead author, Simon Bouton of the London Research Institute Clare Hall Laboratories, said. "We used a microscopic worm to identify a protein, RTEL1, which possesses many of the properties of Srs2. We then looked at human RTEL1 and found that it acted in the same way, which is extremely exciting," he added.

Dr Bouton went on to say that "RTEL1 is fundamentally important in ensuring that DNA damage is repaired correctly, preventing DNA rearrangements. We think this finding will have important implications for understanding cancer as RTEL1 is amplified in certain human tumors."