HOUSTON - Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have identified a protein that marks the tumor suppressor p53 for destruction, providing a potential new avenue for restoring p53 in cancer cells.
The new protein, called Trim24, feeds p53 to a protein-shredding complex known as the proteasome by attaching targeting molecules called ubiquitins to the tumor suppressor, the team reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition.