A new Study appearing in Science Advances presents a potential new method for treating secondary breast cancer by preventing its spread to the liver. Headed by Simon L. Spitzer from McGill University, this study shows that inhibiting a protein named MNK1 restrains cancer cells’ ability to reprogram their metabolism, which limits the chances of these cells to grow and thrive in the hostile environment of the liver.
The Challenge of Metastasis
Metastasis which is the migration of cancer to other parts of the body accounts for a high percentage of cancer related mortality. For patients with breast cancer, the liver is a major organ in which cancer cells spread and once it further advances to the liver, it becomes very dire. It will be worthwhile to focus on ways which prevent or even limit spread or metastases to the liver as it will greatly influence the patients’ chances of survival.
Focusing on MNK1
The researchers focused on MNK1, a protein of the family of protein kinases that was known to be associated with the disease of cancer, its role in metastatic cancer relatives was unclear at best. They’ve recently improved the cancer models of a breast cancer cell line by knocking out MNK1 and normalizing the results with normal melanoma cells.
Key Findings
Their experiments uncovered also certain key findings:
- Decrease in Liver Metastases: When breast cancer cells deficient in MNK1 were injected in to mice, they were found to be far less tumorigenic in the liver than controls. The number of liver metastases was once again very much reduced.
- Poor Glycolysis: MNK1 deficient cancer cells showed underutilization of glycolysis which is a metabolic pathway that leads to energy production through glucose breakdown. As a result, they were very much unable to withstand the effect of glucoses even in the liver.
- Metabolic Target: Without MNK1, cancer cells developed a higher reliance on mitochondrial metabolism (oxidative phosphorylation) for energy. Thus, they became more susceptible to drugs that target this metabolic route.
- Liver-Dependent Effects: The changes appeared to be liver specific when it came to metastasis and since the cells lacked MNK1 they had no difficulty in metastasizing to the lungs.
Implications of the Research for the Future of Cancer Treatment
MNK1 is placed by the cancer down in lungs which makes the cancer cells survive under these adverse conditions,” Dr. Stephanie Piekarski, lead author of the study explained why it states. “It was shown that once MNK1 is deleted the cancer cells change their energy machinery and flake out in the liver.”
Key therapeutic advances are built of these ideas:
Drug Development: Drugs which function as MNK1 inhibitors are already under development against other diseases in clinical trials. It is suggested that these drugs might be used for the treatment of breast cancer with livery metastases.
New Approach to Treat the Disease: The group demonstrated that sequential treatment of MNK and mitochondrial metabolism inhibiting drugs is particularly effective against breast cancer cell lines in vitro. It may yield some important results in future work.
How This Disease Connects to Actual Human Diseases
Additionally, important results of the study were looking for the relationship of MNK1 expression levels and tissues from breast cancer patients clinical samples to glucose utilization. So, it implies that the results achieved in mice might some way may be applied in the treatment of cancer in humans.
Conclusion
Although further studies are required to apply the insights above to clinical imaging, there is still great potential in looking forward to some strategies for outsmart metastatic breast cancer. If we could in some way neutralize the metabolic plasticity of the cancerous tissues, we would probably change the tide.
The complete research, ‘MNK1 promotes breast cancer liver metastasis by modulating tumor cell metabolism and glycolysis,’ can be found in the most recent edition of Science Advances.
