Scientists deepen their understanding of nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Quantitative analysis of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signalling pathways has provided insight into cancer, possibly leading to future therapy development.

The EGFR is usually overexpressed in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), which is the most common type of cancer in the nasopharynx, the uppermost region of the pharynx or respiratory tract.

Overexpression of EGFR is associated with the development of the cancer, but little is understood about the downstream signalling proteins, so a study, published in Proteome Science, aimed to discover more through quantitative analysis.

The results revealed that phosphoprotein GSTP1 could contribute to paclitaxel resistance in epidermal growth factor (EGF)-stimulated CNE2 cells.

Scientists then constructed an EGFR signalling network based on the identified EGFR-regulated phosphoproteins using Pathway Studio 5.0 software, predicting that it includes novel EGFR-regulated proteins and implicates the possible biological roles for those proteins.

As a result, the team found information that would be useful to NPC pathogenesis and the development of therapeutic targets.