Drugs turn cancer cells into fat to stop metastasis | The
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Cancer is an obscure setback of life. A tumor cell is nothing other than a healthy cell that has altered its genetic programming, allowing it to reproduce faster, to generate a primary tumor, to move about in the body and to generate secondary tumors, metastases, responsible for 90% of cancer deaths. For all this, the disease uses biological mechanisms identical to those that allow the growth of a healthy lifestyle.
This plasticity could also be a weak point, according to a study published Monday. The study shows that the combination of two drugs, trametinib antitumor and rosiglitazone antidiabetic, transforms the antitumor effects of antitumor drug, bad cancer cells into harmless fat in the body of rats that have received bad tumor transplants with metastasis of human patients. The work focused on triple negative tumors, the most aggressive type of bad cancer that did not respond to hormone receptor medications
The key to the study was to attack cancer at a time when the tumor cells are doing what is called the transition. Epithelial-mesenchymal. This metamorphosis is fundamental for the development of an embryo and for the formation of different organs and tissues of a healthy body. It also plays a role in the proliferation of tumors because it helps the epithelial tumor cells attached to a tissue become mesenchymal, allowing them to separate and move in the blood.
"Fat cells can not multiply, so after the transformation, the tumor can not grow anymore."
Dana Ronen, University of Basel
The study, published in the journal Cancer Cell shows how the combination of the two drugs stops the proliferation of the tumor in the origin and metastases. According to the article, this is explained by the fact that drugs interfere with the transition, turning cancer cells into fat cells.
"By definition, fat cells can not multiply to give birth to girls, so after transformation, the tumor can not grow, it's like a dead end," says Dana Ronen, a researcher at the University. Basel and co-author of the study. "Transformation into fat only affects the outermost cells of the tumor, responsible for movement and metastasis, so it should not have a negative effect on health or change the weight of the cells. The other primary tumor cells become more differentiated, which makes them perhaps more vulnerable to other treatments, such as hormone therapy, "he emphasizes. "These are very preliminary results, but they are important because they represent a new innovative therapeutic pathway," he said. Miguel Ángel Quintela, director of the Breast Cancer Unit of the National Center for Cancer Research (CNIO) in Spain. "The logical thing is to continue to investigate.There is a good basis for pbading it on to humans, because only two drugs already approved for other uses, both of low toxicity, are needed," says Quintela.
"One of the drugs we use, Trametinib, is very expensive, we hope that this work will arouse the interest of some of the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture them, so that they can finance their studies according to this type of combination. "
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