USC Researchers Unlock Fatal Vulnerability in Many Cancer Cells
chromas writes:
USC researchers unlock fatal vulnerability in many cancer cells
Like any cells in the body, cancer cells need sugar - namely glucose - to fuel cell proliferation and growth. Cancer cells in particular metabolize glucose at a much higher rate than normal cells. However researchers from USC Viterbi's Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science have unlocked a weakness in a common type of cancer cell: sugar inflexibility. That is, when cancer cells are exposed to a different type of sugar - galactose - the cells can't adapt, and will die.
[...] The paper describes how oncogenes, the genes that cause cancer, can also lead cancer cells to become inflexible to changes in their sugar supply. Normally, cells grow by metabolizing glucose, but most normal cells can also grow using galactose. However, the team discovered that cells possessing a common cancer-causing gene named AKT cannot process galactose, and therefore they die when exposed to this type of sugar.
[...] The team's findings also showed that while the oxidative process brought on by galactose did result in cell death in AKT-type cancer cells, when the cells were given a different genetic mutation, MYC, the galactose did not kill the cells.
[...] The researchers also discovered after around 15 days in galactose, some cancer cells started to reoccur.
Journal Reference:
Dongqing Zheng, Jonathan H. Sussman, Matthew P. Jeon, et al. AKT but not MYC promotes reactive oxygen species-mediated cell death in oxidative culture [$], Journal of Cell Science (DOI: 10.1242/jcs.239277)
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