New Ways of Choking Tumors Identified

By cutting off the supply of a specific sugar known as GlcNAc (glick-nack), scientists can now choke off tumors.

Tumours need abundant supplies of cellular building blocks, specifically amino acids and nucleotides (a compound), to keep multiplying fast under harsh conditions, the journal Science reported.

When scientists from California Institute of Technology (Caltech), led by Linda Hsieh-Wilson, professor of chemistry, blocked the addition of GlcNAc to a particular protein in mice, it hit tumour-cell growth, according to a Caltech statement.

Source: IANS