Palmitoylation, a new target for anti-cancer drugs — ScienceDaily

Peripheral membrane proteins have the particularity of temporarily binding to cell membranes, a necessary step for them to be able to fulfil their biological function. To do this, certain enzymes that catalyse their lipid modification come into action. This process is called “palmitoylation.” Some of these proteins can mutate and become oncogenic, such as the RAS proteins, which are responsible for about one third of cancers. In order to understand how palmitoylation works and to use it for therapeutic purposes, scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, developed a novel tool to visualize this process in living cells. They have shown that, contrary to what was thought, palmitoylation is possible not only in the Golgi apparatus, the usual site for protein processing and delivery, but also at the very site where the protein must act, e.g. the plasma membrane. This…

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