The EACR’s ‘Highlights in Cancer Research’ is a regular summary of the most interesting and impactful recent papers in cancer research, curated by the Board of the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR).
The list below appears in no particular order, and the summary information has been provided by the authors unless otherwise indicated.
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Wu, X., Huang S., Gao, J. et al. Science Advances. 11(34): eadv6937. (2025).
doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adv6937.
doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adv6937.
Summary by Jukka Westermarck, EACR Board Member
Summary of the findings
The authors discover a very sophisticated mechanism how cancer cell metabolism links to posttranslational protein modification (PTMs) by nitration and thereby inhibits MYC expression and cancer cell invasion. In detail, aldo-keto reductase AKR1B10, known to be downregulated in cancer, unrelated to its metabolic functions, nitrates a regulatory subunit of protein phosphatase 2A which leads to increased PP2A holoenzyme assembly and MYC inhibition. In cancer cells in which AKR1B10 is lost, pharmacological PP2A activation restores MYC suppression and effectively mitigates metastasis.
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This paper is a fascinating example how yet very poorly understood PTM, such as single amino acid nitration, can have pivotal role in cancer by mechanisms that are completely hidden by genetics studies, but dependent on regulation of protein interaction and chains of PTMs such as here nitration leading to dephosphorylation and MYC inactivation.
This paper is a fascinating example how yet very poorly understood PTM, such as single amino acid nitration, can have pivotal role in cancer by mechanisms that are completely hidden by genetics studies, but dependent on regulation of protein interaction and chains of PTMs such as here nitration leading to dephosphorylation and MYC inactivation.
