Study shows protein complex essential to creating healthy blood cells
Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and its Perlmutter Cancer Center say their findings, which resulted from experiments in mice and human cells, suggest that placing strict biological controls on a portion of the protein complex, known as Mediator Complex Subunit 12, or MED12 for short, could serve as a tool for stopping a variety of cancers. MED12 mutations, they note, have been linked to several kinds of leukemia, as well as cancers of the prostate, uterus, and connective tissue. Researchers say their latest experiments, described in a report in the journal Cell Stem Cell online Aug. 25, are believed to be the first to fill in the details about how MED12 is vital to the growth of hematopoietic stem cells, or HSCs, in bone marrow, to keep blood cells healthy. Three other proteins known to be tied to the active part of the mediator complex were tested and found to not be essential to HSC development, confirming MED12's prominence, they say. "Because MED12 appe...