Summary
Oncologists have discovered that difficulties treating and managing the most common type of lung cancer, adenocarcinoma or non-small cell lung cancer, is related to a protein called agrin.
According to Dr. Chakraborty and his team, the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) gene whose mutations cause a variety of different cancers correlate with an increased amount of agrin in the extracellular matrix (ECM), a soup of proteins, enzymes and collagen that surrounds and supports human and animal cells.
The team interrupted the growth progression of lung cancer cell cultures by targeting agrin. Treatments that target agrin could potentially increase the efficacy of EGFR therapies. In the future, tests that determine the amount of agrin in blood serum could be used by doctors as another method of determining the effecitveness of lung cancer treatment.
