Chaperones as Thermodynamic Sensors

The document summarizes several studies on cancer drugs, tumor suppressor function, target profiling, and dermal disorders from 2013. One study identified a peptidomimetic that disrupts the interaction between the androgen receptor (AR) and the co-regulator protein PELP1, inhibiting AR nuclear translocation and androgen-induced proliferation, and reducing tumor growth in a mouse model of prostate cancer. Another study introduced PTEN-long, a secreted variant of the tumor suppressor PTEN, which can enter cells, antagonize PI3K signaling, and reduce tumor growth in mice, suggesting potential therapeutic benefits. A third study used a thermodynamic sensor assay to profile the specificity of 30 kinase inhibitors against over 300 kinases in living cells, identifying the ETV6-NTRK3 fusion oncogene as a new target of crizotinib. Lastly, a study on dermal disorders found that fibroblast growth factor 9 (FGF9) is key for hair follicle regeneration after skin wounding in mice, and its overexpression increased neogenic hair follicles, indicating that FGF9 might be targeted to induce hair follicle regeneration in humans.