Research Finds Criminals Boosting Cancer Increasing With Age

TOKYO (AFP)—Our body converts food into energy, producing debris that accumulates with age. New research indicates that one of these metabolic disposables plays a potentially deadly role in the development of cancer.

This finding adds to the body of knowledge about how the aging process accelerates the chances of developing a deadly cancer, but it also provides potential means for blocking metastatic tumors.

Published this Wednesday in the Journal Nature, the study stems from a study of metastases, the process by which cancer cells separate from the original tumor and earlier new tumors elsewhere in the body.

Observation of metastatic cells revealed something interesting. A high level of something called methylmalonic acid (MMA), a metabolic byproduct that appears to accumulate as we grow older.

To investigate whether MMA may play a role in metastasis, scientists have examined the behavior of lung and breast cancer tumor cells when exposed to blood samples taken from people under 30 or over 60. I checked.

In 25 of 30 blood samples from young donors, cancer cells showed no change, but in 25 of 30 old blood samples, cells began to show different characteristics.

Research has found that they have developed an increased “migration and invasive capacity”, as well as resistance to two drugs often used to treat cancer.

Injecting cells into mice resulted in metastatic tumors in the lungs.

So how does MMA trigger changes in these cancer cells? The key seems to be a kind of reprogramming that “turns on” a gene called SOX4.

Previous studies have shown that SOX4 makes cancer cells more aggressive and more likely to metastasize.

“what to do”

To test whether it’s really SOX4 that is altering the properties of cancer cells, the team has blocked gene expression and found that MMA no longer appears to have the same effect. ..

Blocking SOX4 also stopped the process by which cancer cells resist two cancer treatments.

“This discovery is the start of many investigations in many different directions,” said John Brenis, professor of pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine, who led the study.

“But our overall hope is to be able to develop treatments that ultimately lower MMA levels, which in turn reduce cancer mortality,” Brennis said in Weill Cornell Medicine. I said in.

There are many open questions, including why MMA accumulates with age and whether the mechanisms researchers have observed in blood samples and mice are the same in humans.

All blood samples used were also taken from men, and one of the ways Blenis would like to investigate further is whether the accumulation of MMA has the same effect on women.

“It’s a whole new discovery, and there’s still a lot of work we have to do to follow it up,” Brennis said.

However, there are already some promising potential ways in which the findings could impact treatment.

Since MMA accumulation is associated with a high protein diet, a low protein diet may help improve the response in cancer patients.

In theory, drugs that lower MMA levels could also play a role, potentially reducing the aggressive spread of cancer in patients.

Sarah Hussein
© Agence France-Presse