Nov 10, 2023 12:31 AM
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1007257
INTRO: A group of researchers led by the Francis Crick Institute, working with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and Imperial College London, have discovered that breast cancer cells expressing a cancer-driving gene heavily rely on vitamin B5 to grow and survive. The researchers are part of Cancer Grand Challenges team Rosetta, funded by Cancer Research UK.
In their research published today in Nature Metabolism, the team studied the metabolic effects of one of the major cancer-driving genes called Myc. In tumour cells where Myc is highly expressed, it disturbs normal processes, drives cell growth and also makes tumour cells dependent on certain nutrients.
These dependencies could be exploited as potential therapeutic targets, but it’s hard to appropriately identify and target metabolic dependencies in human tumours, as Myc expression can vary throughout the tumour.
The researchers developed tumours inside mice with two different types of cells, either with high or low levels of Myc. They also transplanted human breast cancer tumour tissue into mice, which also had a mixture of Myc-high and Myc-low areas.
By using a technique called mass spectrometry imaging, the researchers saw that vitamin B5 was associated with Myc-high areas of both mice and human transplanted tumours. This association was also observed in biopsies taken from patients with breast cancer.
They found that Myc increased the amount of a multivitamin transporter, which allowed more vitamin B5 to enter the cells. When the researchers made the cells produce more molecules which make up the transporter, more vitamin B5 entered the cells, even in Myc-low cells. This was enough to enable faster growth of these cells, just like Myc would normally do.
They then fed mice a vitamin B5-deficient diet, and saw that their Myc-low and Myc-high mixed tumours grew more slowly than tumours in mice who were fed a standard diet. This also happened in the human breast cancer tissue when transplanted into the mice.
The researchers believe that this association with tumour growth is due to the key role vitamin B5 plays in metabolism. Once taken into cells, it is converted into a molecule called coenzyme A, which can then be used in lots of metabolic pathways. This ultimately leads to more energy and the production of materials (like fats, proteins and carbohydrates), enabling the cell to grow.
Although the study links vitamin B5 and tumour growth, it would be too simple to just restrict vitamin B5 intake for people with cancer – vitamins are also important for the immune system to fight back against the tumour. The researchers are now devising strategies to selectively weaken the tumours, without affecting the immune system, to increase the likelihood of a favourable clinical outcome... (MORE - details, no ads)
INTRO: A group of researchers led by the Francis Crick Institute, working with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and Imperial College London, have discovered that breast cancer cells expressing a cancer-driving gene heavily rely on vitamin B5 to grow and survive. The researchers are part of Cancer Grand Challenges team Rosetta, funded by Cancer Research UK.
In their research published today in Nature Metabolism, the team studied the metabolic effects of one of the major cancer-driving genes called Myc. In tumour cells where Myc is highly expressed, it disturbs normal processes, drives cell growth and also makes tumour cells dependent on certain nutrients.
These dependencies could be exploited as potential therapeutic targets, but it’s hard to appropriately identify and target metabolic dependencies in human tumours, as Myc expression can vary throughout the tumour.
The researchers developed tumours inside mice with two different types of cells, either with high or low levels of Myc. They also transplanted human breast cancer tumour tissue into mice, which also had a mixture of Myc-high and Myc-low areas.
By using a technique called mass spectrometry imaging, the researchers saw that vitamin B5 was associated with Myc-high areas of both mice and human transplanted tumours. This association was also observed in biopsies taken from patients with breast cancer.
They found that Myc increased the amount of a multivitamin transporter, which allowed more vitamin B5 to enter the cells. When the researchers made the cells produce more molecules which make up the transporter, more vitamin B5 entered the cells, even in Myc-low cells. This was enough to enable faster growth of these cells, just like Myc would normally do.
They then fed mice a vitamin B5-deficient diet, and saw that their Myc-low and Myc-high mixed tumours grew more slowly than tumours in mice who were fed a standard diet. This also happened in the human breast cancer tissue when transplanted into the mice.
The researchers believe that this association with tumour growth is due to the key role vitamin B5 plays in metabolism. Once taken into cells, it is converted into a molecule called coenzyme A, which can then be used in lots of metabolic pathways. This ultimately leads to more energy and the production of materials (like fats, proteins and carbohydrates), enabling the cell to grow.
Although the study links vitamin B5 and tumour growth, it would be too simple to just restrict vitamin B5 intake for people with cancer – vitamins are also important for the immune system to fight back against the tumour. The researchers are now devising strategies to selectively weaken the tumours, without affecting the immune system, to increase the likelihood of a favourable clinical outcome... (MORE - details, no ads)