One of the major goals in the development of anti-cancer treatments is to find an inhibitor effective against the oncogenic protein known as KRAS. Despite decades of active agent research, efforts to intercede in this protein's cancer-promoting effect have not been successful. KRAS only becomes fully functional once it is anchored in the cell membrane. Therefore, the location of KRAS in the cell is closely connected with its cancer-promoting effect. In a new study, researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund have now discovered how the transport of KRAS to the cell membrane can be interfered with by a new type of inhibitor. The approach that Deltarasin takes as an inhibitor is not directed against KRAS itself as previous approaches have been, but instead against the KRAS transport protein PDEδ. These research results open up approaches to cancer therapy, especially for the most deadly of all cancers, cancer of the pancreas, which is often detected at such a late stage that therapies can no longer counter it.
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