Phosphatases of regenerating liver (PRLs) are a family of enigmatic proteins involved in cell growth and metabolism present in various species. From humans to fruit flies, they play a novel role in the expansion of cancerous tumors and the spread of cancer throughout the body. Recent research emerging from McGill University is contributing to what is understood about PRLs, which could potentially turn into a very important tool in the event of cancer-fighting treatments.

Led by Kalle Gehring, a professor within the Department of Biochemistry and founding director of the McGill Centre for Structural Biology, the researchers focused on unraveling the mystery around PRLs.

It is important for us to review PRLs because they’re so vital in cancer. In some cancers resembling metastatic colorectal cancer, the proteins are overexpressed as much as 300-fold.”

Kalle Gehring, Professor, Department of Biochemistry

Published within the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Prof. Gehring and his colleagues (with data collected on the Canadian Light Source (CLS) on the University of Saskatchewan) confirmed that not only PRLs exist in every kind of single- and multi-cell animals, but that the role of PRLs in binding magnesium transporters is common amongst all studied species.

This overexpression of PRLs makes cancer cells more metastatic and drives the spread to other organs. This data could help to further the understanding of how these proteins influence human disease.

“What we learned is that all of them bind the magnesium transporters in the identical way,” says Gehring. “We’re excited since it helps us understand this pathway, and that may reveal recent targets for drugs to forestall cancer progression.”

Source:

Journal reference:

Fakih, R., et al. (2023). Burst kinetics and CNNM binding are evolutionarily conserved properties of phosphatases of regenerating liver. Journal of Biological Chemistry. doi.org/10.1016/j.jbc.2023.103055.