One way environmental stress causes cancer is by reducing the activity level of an enzyme that causes cell death, researchers say.

They found that stress-inducing agents, such as oxidative stress, recruit a protein called SENP1 that cuts a regulator called SUMO1 away from the enzyme SIRT1 so its activity level drops, says Dr. Yonghua Yang, postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Kapil Bhalla, director of the MCG Cancer Center.

This fundamental finding about the relationship between stress and cancer opens the door for treatments that increase SENP1 activity, making it easier for cells that are becoming cancerous to die, says Dr. Yang, first author on a paper published in the November issue of Nature Cell Biology.

Ralph’s Note- The reason this is important. Is some scientist believe it is the oxidative stress that is kill for killing cancer. Therefore anti-oxidants may be bad thing. It may be the enzymes, not the free radicals that kill cancer after all. Otherwise claiming that anti-oxidants may predispose you to cancer is ludicrous.