Key Points
Berlin [Germany], October 25 (ANI): Researchers in Michael Sigals lab at the Max Delbruck Center and Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin have discovered the significance of the p53 gene in ulcerative colitis..
A team of researchers led by Kimberly Hartl, a graduate student at the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology of the Max Delbruck Center (MDC-BIMSB) and Charite Universitatsmedizin, have shed new light on the role of the p53 tumor suppressor gene in the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis (UC) an inflammatory bowel disease that afflicts an estimated five million people worldwide and that is linked to an increased risk of colon cancer..
In patients with ulcerative colitis who are at high risk for developing cancer, we could potentially target aberrant cells and get rid of them early, before any cancer occurs, says Professor Michael Sigal, Group Leader of the Gastrointestinal Barrier, Regeneration Carcinogenesis lab at MDC-BIMSB, Head of Luminal Gastroenterology at Charite, and a senior author of the paper...
Together with specialists in DNA and RNA sequencing as well as proteomics and metabolomic technology at the Max Delbruck Center, they found that cells in organoids lacking p53 are stuck in the regenerative state..
The researchers are also now studying the repair process in more detail with the goal of developing more simple methods to identify cells with defective p53 genes in colon tissue...
