Researchers have discovered a fundamental mechanism of tumor growth, a breakthrough that may lead to more effective and less toxic treatments for cancer.
Researchers at Harvard University have discovered a fundamental mechanism of tumor growth, a breakthrough that may lead to more effective and less toxic treatments for cancer.
The scientists have identified an enzyme which enables cancer cells to consume the huge quantities of glucose they need to fuel uncontrolled growth.The research team has described how starving cancer cells of the enzyme curbed their growth.
The key enzyme, pyruvate kinase, comes in two forms, but the team found that only one - the PKM2 form - enables cancer cells to consume glucose at an accelerated rate.
When they forced cancer cells to switch to other form of pyruvate kinase in the lab by knocking out production of PKM2, their growth was curbed.
When the cells were injected into mice, they were much less able to produce tumors.
The fact that proliferating cancer are able to consume glucose at a much higher rate than normal cells was first discovered by the German Nobel prize-winning chemist Otto Warburg more than 75 years ago.
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The researchers said the exact chemistry behind glucose metabolism probably varied between types of cancer.
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"We don't yet know whether these findings can be applied to human cancers outside the lab, so more research is needed before we can consider developing cancer treatments that target this process,” Dr Joanna Peak, of the charity Cancer Research UK, said.
The study is published in the journal Nature.
Source-ANI
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