Down's syndrome involved in tumor suppression

It has already been observed that individuals affected by Down's syndrome show reduced tumor growth and speculations arised that the additional copy of Chromosome 21 could feature the genes leading to this effect. Now a study published in Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7250/abs/nature08062.html) proofed one of these genes to be coding for a protein inhibiting the VEGF-Calcineurin pathway, the so called Down’s syndrome candidate region 1 (DSCR1). In mouse models for lung carcinoma and melanoma the a tird copy of the DSCR1 encoding gene was sufficient to reduce angiogenesis and thus significantly slowing down tumor growth. As already mentioned in the part concerning Immunotherapy, the VEGF is a rather prominent target for anti-tumor drugs. A naturally occuring negative regulator of the VEGF pathway opens the way for a completely different set of therapeutic tools to control tumors.