The study (“which is published in Sciencecould lead to the development of therapeutics that could potentially inhibit this pathway in human cancer cells and help control their growth.

“We had been studying components of this pathway for several years,” said senior author Andrea Ballabio, M.D., professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, and director of the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine in Naples, Italy. “We know that the pathway is important for normal cells to carry on their activities as it is involved in regulating metabolism, that is, how cells process nutrients to obtain energy and how cells use energy to grow. In this study, we wanted to learn more about how the pathway regulates its activity.”