Scientists from the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), the Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the University Hospital in Oslo have discovered cellular processes regulated by the AXL receptor. Understanding these processes could help in developing cancer and COVID-19 therapies. The research results are published by “PNAS” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).
Metastasis or the ability of cancer cells to leave the primary tumor and spread to other organs in the body makes many cancers largely incurable. Another important cause of failure of oncological therapies is the loss of drug sensitivity by cancer cells, i.e. the acquisition of the so-called drug resistance.
The Polish Academy of Sciences informs, that AXL is a receptor tyrosine kinase which activation is associated with both metastasis and drug resistance. In the article in “PNAS”, Polish scientists described the first interactions (a set of interacting proteins) and cellular processes regulated by AXL, which explain the role of this receptor in cancer progression and metastasis.
