Targeting nerve growth factor may cure liver cancer

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Public release date: 5-Sep-2007

World Journal of Gastroenterology

Targeting nerve growth factor may cure liver cancer

Nerve growth factor (NGF), as the name says, is an essential peptide

factor for the growth and differentiation of neuronal cells. Therefore

we can imagine that this growth factor is important for the nervous

system including brain. But a recent scientific report published in

the October 7 issue of the World Journal of Gastroenterology tells us

another surprising and exciting discovery about this growth factor:

NGF is positively related with liver cancer, the No.2 killer among all

kinds of cancers in the world.

This research was collaboration among scientists from National

Research Council of Italy, Marino Hospital in Rome, Regina Elena

Cancer Institute in Rome, and University of Rome. This fruitful

collaboration was under the leadership of Dr lucia Serafino, a

talented biologist who has made her well-recognized reputation in

cancer research and hepatitis C virus research. She is holding a

senior researcher position in the national research council in Rome,

which plays a similar role as the National Institutes of Health in the

United States.

With many beautiful pictures of immunohistology, these scientists

showed that NGF and its receptor trkANGF were expressed in the liver

of the patients troubled with liver cirrhosis and/or hepatocellular

carcinoma (HCC) while these two molecules are not detected in the

liver of healthy people. For a growth factor to affect a cell, there

should be its specific receptor expressed on the surface of the target

cell. Since both NGF and its specific receptor are abnormally

expressed in the liver of patients, NGF seems to be expressed by liver

cells to affect themselves (so called autocrine) or to affect adjacent

cells (so called paracrine) in patients with liver cirrhosis and/or HCC.

These important discoveries indicate that NGF is playing a critical

role in the development of liver cirrhosis and its progression towards

HCC. Based on this discovery, targeting the NGF or its specific

receptor trkANGF in diseased liver may suppress or prevent the

development of liver cirrhosis and HCC. In the near future,

bioengineers may be able to design a medicine directed to liver to

inactivating NGF or its receptor.

The discovery reported in this article also opens up the possibility

to use NGF in the early diagnosis of liver cirrhosis and HCC because

of the high and specific expression of this growth factor in the liver

progressing into liver cirrhosis and/or HCC.

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