Statistical Observation of Psychological State in Patients with Collagen Disease (45th Tohoku Regional Meeting of the Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Medicine Abstracts)

The study tested the hypothesis that suppressing ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) activity could block the promotion of target cells in the hair follicle's outer root sheath initiated by Raf/MEK/ERK activation. Researchers crossed mice overexpressing an activated MEK mutant with transgenic lines overexpressing antizyme (AZ), which targets ODC for degradation. The expression of AZ significantly delayed tumor incidence and reduced tumor multiplicity in these mice compared to those expressing only the MEK transgene. The most notable results were observed in MEK/K6-AZ mice, which developed fewer tumors. The study found that AZ primarily inhibited putrescine accumulation, slowing cell growth by increasing G2/M transit time, without inducing apoptosis.