Cancer specialists identify the 'death gene'

Cancer specialists think they have found a "death gene" that may play a role in making healthy cells die – but which malignant cells exploit to stay alive.

The researchers at the Beatson Laboratories in Glasgow believe that the discovery will be important in developing treatments that are able to make tumours self-destruct.

Some of the body's genes apparently exist only to trigger cells to commit "suicide" – for instance when they appear to be about to turn cancerous – to keep the body's tissues in a constantly shifting equilibrium. But cells that do become cancerous either lack or ignore those genes. They keep dividing long past their intended lifespan and often beyond the point where they cause damage to the surrounding body.

Ken Parkinson, who led the team at the Beatson centre, said that it had pinpointed one of the genes on a tiny section of chromosome four, which is just four genes long.

Previously, the scientists had discovered that cervical cancer cells were able to stay alive through a defect involving the loss of part of chromosome four. Humans have 22 pairs of similar chromosomes, and a pair of sex chromosomes. Dr Parkinson said: "If we can find the genetic faults responsible for their survival, we can begin to look at ways of making [cancer] cells vulnerable again."