Cell signaling key to stopping growth and migration of brain cancer cells

January 17, 2012 in Cancer

Brain cancer is hard to treat: it's not only strong enough to resist most chemotherapies, but also nimble enough to migrate away from radiation or surgery to regrow elsewhere.

New research at the University of Colorado shows how to stop both.

Specifically, cells signal themselves to survive, grow, reproduce, and migrate. Two years ago, researchers at the CU Cancer Center showed that turning off a family of signals made brain less robust – it sensitized these previously resistant cells to chemotherapy.

But the second major problem – migration – potentially remained.

"I thought, aha, I have this great way to treat this cancer, but needed to check that we weren't going to cause other problems. We wondered if turning off TAM family signaling would make cells crawl away to a new spot where they might make new problems," says Amy Keating, MD, investigator at the CU Cancer Center and senior author of the study, recently published in the journal Nature: Oncogene.

So Keating and colleagues went inside this TAM signaling family to explore how its members affect not only proliferation but migration. When they inhibited signaling through the other family member Axl, little changed (actually this was good: at least turning off this signaling pathway didn't promote cancer cell migration).

But when Keating and colleagues turned off signaling through the Mer pathway, it was neither too hot nor too cold – it was just right, and these affected cancer cells were not only more sensitive to chemotherapy, but also unable to escape to safer areas of the brain.

Currently glioblastoma multiforme affects 45,000 people in the United States every year, the majority of whom will not survive 14 months after diagnosis.

"This represents a new targeted therapy, offering a potential new direction that nobody's tried before," says Keating, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

After these extremely promising results with cell lines, Keating and colleagues are currently testing the technology in mice, after which all involved hope to move soon to human clinical trials.

Provided by University of Colorado Denver

5 /5 (2 votes)  

Rank 5 /5 (2 votes)
Relevant PhysicsForums posts

More news stories

Cancer survivors need more support to stop smoking and drinking

Cancer survivors are no more likely to stop smoking, cut down on alcohol, or exercise more often than the general population, according to new research published in the British Journal of Cancer today (Wednesday)

Cancer created 20 minutes ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Beta-blockers may boost chemo effect in childhood cancer

Beta-blockers, normally used for high blood pressure, could enhance the effectiveness of chemotherapies in treating neuroblastoma, a type of children's cancer, according to a new study published in the British Jo ...

Cancer created 30 minutes ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Japan hospital tests powerful breast cancer therapy

A Japanese cancer specialist said Wednesday she has started the world's first clinical trial of a powerful, non-surgical, short-term radiation therapy for breast cancer.

Cancer created 40 minutes ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Small cancer risk following CT scans in childhood and adolescence confirmed

The gap between life expectancy in patients with a mental illness and the general population has widened since 1985 and efforts to reduce this gap should focus on improving physical health, suggest researchers in a paper ...

Cancer created 13 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Changing cancer's environment to halt its spread

By studying the roles two proteins, thrombospondin-1 and prosaposin, play in discouraging cancer metastasis, a trans-Atlantic research team has identified a five-amino acid fragment of prosaposin that significantly reduces ...

Cancer created 14 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0


A molecular explanation for age-related fertility decline in women

(Medical Xpress)—Scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health have a new theory as to why a woman's fertility declines after her mid-30s. They also suggest an approach that might help slow ...

Medical researchers discover new ways to target, develop and design drugs to prevent and treat viral infection

Researchers at the University of Alberta have discovered a new drug target, developed a new drug and identified a new way to design drugs—all of which could be a winning combination in the battle against viruses.

Italy approves law on controversial stem cell therapy

Italian lawmakers on Wednesday gave their final approval to a law that allows limited use of a controversial type of stem cell therapy which has been condemned by many scientists but has given hope to families of terminally-ill ...

Ethicists' behavior not more moral, study finds

(Medical Xpress)—Do ethicists engage in better moral behavior than other professors? The answer is no. Nor are they more likely than nonethicists to act according to values they espouse, according to researchers from the ...

American, Nepalese kids a world apart on social duties

(Medical Xpress)—Preschoolers universally recognize that one's choices are not always free – that our decisions may be constrained by social obligations to be nice to others or follow rules set by parents ...

Targeting the X-factor to tackle cardiovascular disease

New research at The University of Nottingham aimed at preventing harmful blood clots associated with heart disease and stroke has recently received a major funding boost from the British Heart Foundation.