La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology researchers studying an enzyme believed to play a role in allergy onset, instead have discovered its previously unknown role as a tumor suppressor that may be important in myeloproliferative diseases and some types of lymphoma and leukemia. Myeloproliferative diseases are a group of disorders characterized by an overproduction of blood cells by the bone marrow and include chronic myeloid leukemia.  Lymphoma and leukemia are cancers of the blood.

"PLC-beta 3 is an enzyme, but the function we found was a completely different function that no one knew it had  -- as a tumor suppressor," said the La Jolla Institute's Toshiaki  Kawakami, M.D., Ph.D., who led the research team.  The study, conducted in animal models, could eventually lead to the development of new therapies directed towards controlling this newly discovered cellular mechanism.  Read the Full Story