Asan Medical Center(AMC) discovers intracellular specific

nuclear receptor inhibits the growth of gastric cancer

A research team led by Prof. Myung Seung-jae of the Department of Gastroenterology and Prof.

Park Yoon-yong of the Department of Convergence Medicine discovered for the first time in Korea

that the nuclear receptors that control the expression of a gene inside cells prevents the growth of gastric cancer.

Gastric cancer is the most common cancer that occurs in Korean men,

yet the development of its effective anticancer drug is slow.

It is because the pathogenesis of gastric cancer is rarely revealed as compared to other types of cancer.

Therefore, this study grabs attention, since it is expected to facilitate the development of anticancer drugs.

The research team compared and analyzed around 500 genomes derived from the tissues of gastric cancer and the stomach.

As a result, the expression of intracellular nuclear receptor called “ESRRG” was more than 15 times higher

in the tissue of the normal stomach than that of gastric cancer.

ESRRG was intentionally activated in rats, and the growth of gastric cancer was significantly reduced.

The effect of ESRRG on the gastric carcinoma cell was also analyzed to find that

if ESRRG is over expressed, the expression of the gene that causes cancer is reduced.

In fact, the injection of the drug known for activating ESRRG into the gastric carcinoma cell significantly decreased

the expression of the cancer development-related gene.

Prof. Park Yoon-yong propounded,

“Gastric cancer targeted anticancer drug is currently effective in about 10% of patients with gastric cancer

and the effectiveness is also unclear yet since immune-oncologic agent was recently expanded to the indications of gastric cancer.

This study is expected to contribute to the development of a new effective drug for gastric cancer as it discovered

that the intracellular nuclear receptor called ESRRG plays a pivotal role in inhibiting the development and growth of gastric cancer.”

This study result was recently published in Nature Communications, an international journal (IF=12.124).

2018.06.29