H19 TECHNOLOGY AND CANCERS TREATMENT
By Cédric Brice & Sarah Xercavins Based on the study of: Matouk, I. J. et al. The H19 non-coding RNA is essential for human tumor growth. PLoS ONE 2, e845 (2007)

Sup’Biotech Paris, Promotion 2010, Option R&D.

TABLE DES MATIÈRES
Introduction 1. Bibliographic Data
1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5. 1.6. Presentation of H19 gene H19 gene is located on the human chromosome 11 Role and function of H19 Expression of H19 gene H19: An oncogene H19 is expressed in many different cancers

3 4
4 5 5 6 7 8

2. About the supporting article
2.1. Materials, Methods and Experiments

10
10

3. Applications
3.1. 3.2.

21

BioCancell, a company that develops a Patient Targeted Therapy Approach to cure cancers 21 The H19 technology is a breakthrough, but it is not as perfect as it sounds 22

Conclusion References

23 24

2

INTRODUCTION
Cancers are one of the major cause of death in developed countries, this is the reason why many pharmaceutical laboratories try to find a miracle drug that will be usable in as many cancers as possible.

We will see in this report that a company named BioCancell made a real breakthrough by using H19 gene as an inducer for some-kind of “suicide gene”. H19 is the major subject of this report, we tried to give you as many informations about it as we could. You will see that siRNA targeting H19 is inhibiting tumor growth or synthesis.

You will also see that even if this treatment is greatly hopeful, we are still doubtful about its possible long-term side-effects, like fertility problem or impossible wounds regeneration.

3

1.

Bibliographic Data

1. Presentation of H19 gene
The H19 gene encodes a 2.3-kb non-coding mRNA which is strongly expressed during embryogenesis. The maternally expression of H19 is an untranslated RNA that serves as a ribonuclear and it is accumulated in epithelial cells in almost 10 percent of breast cancers. This gene belongs to an imprinted cluster,