Scientists may have discovered a new target for treating a deadly brain cancer known as glioblastoma. The research was conducted by a team from USC and UC San Diego.
The circadian "clock" found within the tumour stem cells is the target. It is responsible for how a tumour grows and spreads. It has also developed a resistance to the current treatments options available.
Steve Kay, Provost Professor of neurology, biomedical engineering and biological sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and Jeremy Rich, a neuro-oncologist at University of California, San Diego who specializes in malignant brain tumours are part of the study. "We think this is opening the door to a whole new range of therapies," authors of the study told a news portal. Adding, "It's a great example of collaboration and convergence."
Glioblastoma is a rare and life-threatening disease that generally occurs in people over 60. Most patients only survive for 15 months because this type of cancer can damage the brain tissue to surround it. It is difficult to remove even if one undergoes surgery or treatments like radiation and chemotherapy. The tumour can return and grow from cancer stem cells that were not removed.
Scientists hope the new findings can offer better methods to target those left-behind stem cells. Circadian clocks are made of specific protein molecules that interact in cells all over the body. They control how they grow and repair any damage caused to their DNA. Diseases can be a result of times when circadian timing is off in cells. When biological clocks run fast or slow, it can cause a disruption in circadian rhythms, which can increase the risk of cancer in some people.
When researchers studied the biological clocks of glioblastoma stem cells they discovered they were "on steroids, on overdrive."
So they decided to use a small-molecule drug to target the proteins in the stem cells' circadian clocks. This caused the cells to die at a rapid pace. "This was a striking, amazing result nobody really predicted," Kay told a news portal.
"This lays the groundwork for us to explore this as a novel therapy for glioblastoma," Kay told a news portal. Adding "In the near future, we're going to do more work with animal models of the tumour and compare our new drug with the current standard of care. Perhaps we can one day contribute towards meeting this terrible unmet medical need."
The study's findings were originally published in the journal Cancer Discovery.
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