Zinc transporter key in pancreatic cancer

摘要

Several studies have linked breast cancer to abnormalities in cellular zinc transport, which is controlled by the ZnT and ZIP protein families. Zinc is required by many enzymes, including those critical to aspects of tumor growth. Min Li et al. report that overexpression of the zinc importer ZIP4 also is connected to human pancreatic cancer. The authors had previously identified high levels of ZIP4 mRNA in human pancreatic cancer tissues. Here, they assayed tissue samples from cancer patients in vitro as well as pancreatic cancer cell lines in vivo for ZIP4.