Professor Saverio Alberti, from the University of Chieti in Italy, announced in the European Cancer Conference that his team had discovered a new gene, Trop-2, which could be used as a target for more effective anti-tumour therapy in cancer. The Trop-2 gene is expressed in most human cancers.

Over-expression of Trop-2 was observed in between 65% and 90% of the tumour types analysed. This result really stands out in comparison to other key genetic determinants for cancer. Most of the other markers known to date show lower figures and/or only have a higher percentage in a specific type of cancer.

The findings show that Trop-2 is a novel, widespread, stimulator of human cancer growth and a unique marker and causal factor of metastatic cancer. This makes Trop-2 a suitable candidate as a target for novel diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.

Trop-2 is a membrane-type protein which contains a cancer-associated antigen in its extracellular domain. One of the conserved extracellular functional domains in Trop-2 are Thyroglobulin Type I repeats which are proposed to be inhibitors of cysteine proteases.

1. Click HERE.
2. Select Protein at Query Type.
3. Click on Test Sequence and select Thyroglobulin Type I.
4. Click on the FindSEQUENCE button.