Caspase-1 Inhibition Points to a Possible Lung Cancer Interception Strategy

Caspase-1 Inhibition Points to a Possible Lung Cancer Interception Strategy

Lung cancer prevention has historically meant smoking cessation, exposure reduction, and screening. Pharmacologic prevention has been much harder to define. Yet inflammation is increasingly viewed as one of the biological links between environmental risk, premalignant change, and tumor emergence. A new Science Advances study from MIT adds caspase-1 to that interception landscape. Using activity-based nanosensors to profile protease activity duri…

Blocking caspase-1 appears to reduce the risk of developing lung tumors

Every year, lung cancer kills more than 100,000 people in the United States. Smoking is the leading risk factor for lung cancer, but other environmental exposures can also contribute to the disease.

Multimodal profiling of pro-inflammatory protease activity identifies caspase-1 as a target for lung cancer interception

Abstract Systemic inhibition of interleukin-1b (IL-1b) has been shown to reduce the incidence of lung cancer in patients in years after treatment, but knowledge gaps surrounding its activation and role in the tumor microenvironment hinder cancer interception. We developed activity-based technologies to probe inflammation in early lung cancer and identified a translational target candidate. Probes sensitive to IL-1b–activating proteases were desi…

Inflammatory Enzyme-Targeting Drug May Help Prevent Lung Cancer

Lung cancer remains one of the deadliest cancers in the United States, claiming more than 100,000 lives each year. Cigarette smoking is the dominant risk factor, but the disease also develops in people who have never smoked and in individuals exposed to pollutants, workplace hazards, or chronic inflammation. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of […]