Annual Meeting

Targeting nitrated proteins could lead to new cancer drugs

Núria  Negrão
April 30, 2021

Glioblastoma multiforme is a type of cancer that develops in the brain. Aggressive and difficult to treat, glioblastoma tumors respond to few drugs, and most patients are treated with methods developed about 20 years ago. Kyle Nguyen, a second-year Ph.D. student in Maria Franco’s laboratory at Oregon State University, has been looking for a new way to target these tumors. He will present his work on Friday, 3–3:15 p.m. EDT, at the 2021 ASBMB Annual Meeting.

Courtesy of Kyle Nguyen
Kyle Nguyen in one of the Franco lab’s tissue culture rooms.

In broad terms, the Franco lab is interested in the role of oxidative stress in diseases of the nervous system. Oxidative stress is a chemical imbalance inside cells that leads to an accumulation of oxidants that damage healthy cells. It has been linked to aging and various diseases, including cancer. The lab studies the role of oxidants in the development and growth of tumors of the nervous system.

Franco lab
A confocal microscope image of actin polymerization within glioblastoma cells. Actin is in red, cell nuclei are in blue.

Peroxynitrite is the most powerful oxidant produced in cancer cells and in cells associated with other diseases. When peroxynitrite reacts with proteins it causes oxidative changes that can negatively affect the way the proteins work in the cells. “As far as we know, these are permanent chemical changes,” Nguyen said.

The lab is interested in tyrosine nitration, one of the changes mediated by peroxynitrite. Tyrosine nitration is virtually undetectable in normal tissues, Nguyen explained, so drugs that target nitrated proteins would not affect healthy cells. His project looked at tyrosine nitration of a protein called heat shock protein 90, or Hsp90. Nitrated Hsp90 promotes the survival of tumor cells, and this role is mediated by nitration of tyrosine residues within this protein.

In his work, Nguyen shows that tyrosine nitration supports the survival and migration of glioblastoma cells and thus is important for tumor development, and that nitrated Hsp90 may play more than one role in these tumors. Non-tumor cells do not have nitrated Hsp90 and tumor cells do, so targeting nitrated Hsp90 or other nitrated proteins could selectively kill tumor cells with few side effects.

Enjoy reading ASBMB Today?

Become a member to receive the print edition monthly and the digital edition weekly.

Learn more
Núria  Negrão

Núria Negrão is a medical writer and editor at Cactus Communications.

Get the latest from ASBMB Today

Enter your email address, and we’ll send you a weekly email with recent articles, interviews and more.

Latest in Science

Science highlights or most popular articles

From the journals: JLR
Journal News

From the journals: JLR

Sept. 22, 2023

Linking astrocyte lipid metabolism to microglia activation. Mathematical models of membrane binding. Read about recent papers on these topics.

Discover BMB 2024 symposia: What are they really all about?
Annual Meeting

Discover BMB 2024 symposia: What are they really all about?

Sept. 21, 2023

Read what each symposium’s organizers have to say about their sessions, including who will be speaking, who should attend — even their theme song.

Meet Sarah O’Connor
Interview

Meet Sarah O’Connor

Sept. 21, 2023

This JBC associate editor scouts the plant kingdom for intriguing pathways and hits the hiking trails in Germany.

Out with the old, in with the nucleus
Annual Meeting

Out with the old, in with the nucleus

Sept. 21, 2023

Learn about the Discover BMB 2024 symposium on signaling mechanisms in the nucleus.

Dancing with metals: Iron copper and reactive sparks
Annual Meeting

Dancing with metals: Iron copper and reactive sparks

Sept. 20, 2023

Read about the Discover BMB 2024 symposium on redox and metals in biology.

Processing and translating RNA in health and disease
Annual Meeting

Processing and translating RNA in health and disease

Sept. 20, 2023

Learn about the Discover BMB 2024 symposium on RNA biology.