In the cover article of the March issue of Nature Cell Biology, Dr. Mark Esposito and Dr. Yibin Kang announce the discovery of a novel driver of breast and prostate cancer metastasis. This newly discovered organelle is driven by a relatively unknown protein named DACT1, and KayoThera’s founders discovered that disordered regions #7 and #8 are responsible for the mechanistic basis behind both the organelle’s formation and the progression of cancer metastasis. These two disordered regions may be present interesting sites for drug development as they are also causally associated with Townes-Brock Syndrome, a rare developmental disease.
Additional press on this discovery can be found at Princeton University, a commentary at Nature Cell Biology, and the original article.