Cancer
Scientists hail ‘new ways’ to improve breast cancer treatment
Scientists from the University of Sharjah say they have good news for breast cancer patients, particularly those afflicted with the most aggressive types of the malignant tumor known as triple-negative breast cancer.
The study, published in the European Journal of Pharmacology, provides “new ways for the treatment of the special type of breast cancer called the triple-negative breast cancer,” according to the research’s corresponding author, Prof. Raafat El-Awady.
Triple-negative breast cancers are more aggressive than other forms of breast cancer as they tend to grow and spread quickly, have limited treatment options and show resistance to available therapies.
“Our research has found that high HDAC6 levels lower the amount of progesterone receptors, making breast cancer cells less responsive to hormonal therapies,” Prof. El-Awady, a pharmacologist, adds.
“The implications of our research could extend beyond the lab, offering hope for more effective treatment options in the battle against aggressive breast cancer.”
HDAC6 or histone deacetylase 6 influence a broad range of signaling pathways and cellular processes in cancer cells involving response of cancer cells to therapeutics, and cancer metastasis, or development of malignant growth beyond the tumor’s primary site, while hormone receptors, like the estrogen and progesterone, cause the growth of only some types of breast cancers, which are hormone dependent.
But when these receptors do not function properly, according to Prof. El-Awady, breast cancer patients often struggle to respond to common hormonal therapies, leaving them with limited treatment options.
Prof. El-Awady described triple-breast cancer as “a type (of cancer) that lacks these hormone receptors and is aggressive and hard to treat. Hormone receptors, like the estrogen and progesterone receptors, play a significant role in how breast cancer grows and responds to treatments.
“When these receptors are not expressed or do not function properly, breast cancer patients often struggle to respond to common hormonal therapies, leaving them with limited treatment options.”
The main practical goal of the research is to identify a new therapeutic strategy to enhance the sensitivity of aggressive breast cancer cells to hormonal therapies, and the authors highlight HDAC6 as a potential therapeutic target, demonstrating how inhibiting this protein can restore progesterone receptor levels and potentially reverse resistance to hormonal treatments.
“By shedding light on the role of HDAC6, we aimed to provide insights that could pave the way for developing more effective treatments for patients, particularly those with challenging breast cancer subtypes that are difficult to treat,” says Prof. El-Awady.
The scientists claim that one best way to combat triple-negative cancer is by using a medicine with the ability to stop HDAC6, a process that can lead to a surge in the levels of progesterone receptors.
“By using a drug that blocks HDAC6, we were able to boost the levels of progesterone receptors in breast cancer that were previously lacked it. This change made the breast cancer cells more sensitive to common hormonal therapies.
“These findings suggest that targeting HDAC6 could enhance the effects of hormonal therapies, offering a new hope for patients, particularly those with aggressive types like the triple-negative breast cancer, which is typically aggressive and more difficult to treat,” Prof. El-Awady added.
Statistics show that breast cancer is the most prevalent type of cancer among women worldwide, with 2,296,840 new cases of breast cancer in 2022.
Dr. Wafaa Ramadan, a molecular medicine specialist and the study’s first author, said the research stands out in its discovery that high levels of HDAC6 are linked to low amounts of the progesterone receptors in tissues of breast cancer patients.
“This indicates that the presence of active HDAC6 leads to a reduction or loss of the progesterone receptors with subsequent resistance to anti-progesterone therapies.
“Most importantly, we found that by blocking HDAC6, breast cancer cells became more sensitive to hormonal therapies. This is especially important for types of breast cancer that are more challenging to treat like the triple negative breast cancer.”
The research, says Dr. Burcu Ilce, a specialist in bioinformatics and functional genomics and a co-author, opens up new ways for breast cancer treatment strategies.
“By understanding the role of HDAC6 in hormone receptor regulation, we can potentially develop targeted therapies that enhance the effectiveness of existing treatments.
“This approach is crucial for patients who may not respond to standard hormonal therapies, as it offers a new avenue for tackling their disease.
“Consequently, targeting HDAC6 could lead to better treatment outcomes, reduced resistance to therapies, and improved survival rates for patients with challenging forms of breast cancer.” Prof. Maha Saber-Ayad, a Clinical Pharmacologist and a co-author, adds.
The scientists say they hope for their findings to significantly advance personalised cancer therapy, offering new hopes for patients with limited treatment options.
“Given the growing focus on targeted cancer therapies and epigenetic drugs, it is likely that pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms could be interested in further exploring the development and clinical testing of HDAC6-targeted therapies,” said Varsha Menon, a co-author and research assistant.
“This interest could open the door to strategic partnerships that would accelerate the translation of our research into impactful therapies for breast cancer patients, particularly those with hormone receptor-negative or resistant tumours.”
Prof. El-Awady notes that once the research findings are translated into clinical practice by targeting HDAC6, “they could enhance treatment outcomes for patients with hormone receptor-negative breast cancer.
“By restoring or increasing hormone receptor expression, this approach could provide new therapeutic options, improving treatment efficacy and potentially increasing survival rates for patients who currently have limited responses to conventional hormonal therapies”.
Added Prof. Iman Talaat, a clinical pathologist and a co-author.
“We are excited about the possibility that our work related to targeting HDAC6 could lead to breakthroughs in how we treat breast cancer, giving hope to patients who may have limited treatment options.”
Ovarian cancer cases are rising among younger adults in England, with bowel cancer showing a similar pattern, a new study suggests.
Researchers said excess weight is a key contributor, but is unlikely on its own to explain the pattern.
The authors wrote: “These patterns suggest that while similar risk factors across ages are likely, some cancers may have age-specific exposures, susceptibilities, or differences in screening and detection practices.”
They added: “Although overweight and obesity are linked to 10 of the 11 cancers evaluated and account for a substantial proportion of cancer cases, both BMI-attributable and BMI-non-attributable incidence rates have increased, though the latter more slowly, suggesting other contributors.”
The study analysed cancer incidence, meaning new diagnoses, in England between 2001 and 2019 across more than 20 cancer types, comparing adults aged 20 to 49 with those aged 50 and over.
Among younger women, cases of 16 out of 22 cancers increased significantly over the period, while among younger men, 11 out of 21 cancers increased significantly.
In particular, there was a significant rise in 11 cancers with known behavioural risk factors among adults under 50. These were thyroid, multiple myeloma, liver, kidney, gallbladder, bowel, pancreatic, endometrial, mouth, breast and ovarian cancers.
Rates of all 11 also rose significantly among adults aged 50 and over, with the notable exceptions of bowel and ovarian cancer.
Five cancers, endometrial, kidney, pancreatic, multiple myeloma and thyroid cancer, increased significantly faster in younger than in older women, while multiple myeloma increased faster in younger than in older men.
The researchers looked at established risk factors including smoking, alcohol intake, diet, physical inactivity and body mass index, a measure used to assess whether someone is underweight, a healthy weight, overweight or obese.
With the exception of mouth cancer, all 11 cancers were associated with obesity. Six, liver, bowel, mouth, pancreatic, kidney and ovarian, were also linked to smoking.
Four, liver, bowel, mouth and breast, were associated with alcohol intake. Three, bowel, breast and endometrial, were linked to physical inactivity, and one, bowel, was associated with dietary factors.
But apart from excess weight, trends in those risk factors over the past one to two decades were stable or improving among younger adults.
That suggests other factors may also play a part, including reproductive history, early-life or prenatal exposures, and changes in diagnosis and detection.
The study noted that red meat consumption fell among younger adults, while fibre intake remained stable or slightly improved in both sexes between 2009 and 2019, although more than 90 per cent of younger adults were still not eating enough fibre in 2018.
Established behavioural risk factors accounted for a substantial share of cancer cases.
Excess weight was the risk factor associated with most cancers in 2019, ranging from 5 per cent for ovarian cancer to 37 per cent for endometrial cancer.
The researchers said the findings were based on observational data, meaning the study could identify patterns but could not prove cause and effect.
They also noted there were no consistent long-term national data for several risk factors, that the analysis was limited to England rather than the UK, and that cancer remains far more common overall in older adults despite the rise in cases among younger people.
An AI tool could help spot breast cancer risk by analysing how individual breast cells behave when squeezed under stress, research suggests.
Researchers at City of Hope and the University of California, Berkeley, created a microfluidic platform that assesses women’s breast cancer risk at the cellular level.
The platform squeezes individual breast epithelial cells, which line breast tissue, to measure how they deform, recover and behave under stress.
Because more than 90 per cent of women do not have a known genetic predisposition to breast cancer or a family history of the disease, the researchers said the approach could help fill a key gap in risk assessment.
Mark LaBarge, professor in the department of population sciences at City of Hope, said: “For women with a known genetic risk factor for breast cancer, there are things you can do like follow a higher-risk screening protocol. For everybody else, you’re left wondering, ‘Am I at high risk?’
“By translating physical changes in cells into quantifiable data, this tool gives women something tangible to discuss with their doctors, not just risk estimates, but evidence drawn directly from their own cells.”
The researchers developed a machine learning algorithm that identifies and measures cells showing signs of accelerated ageing, generating an individual breast cancer risk score.
They said the platform uses simple electronics that could be easy and affordable to replicate on a large scale.
Lydia Sohn, chair in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley, said: “Our team isn’t the first to measure the mechanical properties of cells; however, other approaches require advanced imaging technology that’s expensive, cumbersome and has limited availability.
“In contrast, MechanoAge uses computer chips that are simpler than an Apple Watch and ‘RadioShack parts’ that are cheap and easy to assemble, potentially making the device highly scalable.”
About 6 per cent of women who develop breast cancer carry known genetic mutations.
For women outside this group, risk is usually estimated indirectly using population models or measures such as breast density, which can both overestimate and underestimate individual risk.
The researchers said there is currently no non-genetic test that can identify women at higher risk of breast cancer.
Screening mammograms can detect cancer only once it has started to grow, but the MechanoAge platform aims to assess risk earlier by looking for physical changes in individual cells.
Using the platform, the researchers found that breast cells appear to have a “mechanical age” separate from a person’s chronological age, based on how the cells respond to stress.
They said this is the first time mechanical age has been quantified in biological cells.
Sohn said: “We learned that the older the mechanical age, as determined by how cells respond to being squeezed through our microfluidic device, the higher the risk for breast cancer.”
In this type of mechano-node-pore sensing, an electrical current is measured across a liquid-filled channel.
As cells pass through, they disrupt the current, generating measurements about their size and shape. By narrowing parts of the channel, researchers squeeze the cells and then measure how long each one takes to return to its normal shape.
The team found that cells from older women were stiffer and took longer to bounce back after being squeezed.
They also identified a subset of younger women whose cells behaved more like those from older women. These cells came from women with genetic mutations linked to a higher breast cancer risk.
The researchers then refined the algorithm to assign a risk score based on the cells’ measured mechanical and physical properties. They said it successfully identified women with known genetic risks.
The team then used it to compare cells from healthy women, women with a family history of breast cancer, and cells taken from the healthy breast of women with breast cancer in the other breast.
LaBarge said: “With accuracy, we were able to figure out which women were at high risk of breast cancer and which women didn’t seem to be.”
The work grew out of more than 12 years of collaboration between the two labs, combining engineering with cancer and ageing biology.
Sohn said: “It’s a true collaboration. We’ve learned a lot from each other.
LaBarge added: “In my view, this is what happens when you have a real collaboration that develops over a long time. This result is not what we imagined at the beginning.”
An experimental drug slowed triple-negative breast cancer in mice by flooding tumour cells with toxic fats.
Triple-negative breast cancer lacks three common drug targets, making it one of the hardest-to-treat and most aggressive forms of the disease.
The compound, known as DH20931, appears to push cancer cells past their limits by triggering a surge in ceramides, fat-like molecules that place the cells under intense stress until they self-destruct.
In lab experiments, the drug also made standard chemotherapy more effective. When combined with doxorubicin, researchers were able to reduce the dose needed to kill cancer cells by about fivefold.
The drug targets an enzyme known as CerS2 to sharply increase production of these lipids and stress cancer cells. Healthy cells, by contrast, showed lower sensitivity to the drug in lab tests.
While the early results are promising, further preclinical and clinical trials would still be needed to determine the safety and effectiveness of DH20931 in humans.
Satya Narayan, a professor in the University of Florida’s College of Medicine, led the study with an international group of collaborators.
The researchers published their results on human-derived tumours on 21 April and presented their findings on combination therapy at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in San Diego.
Narayan likened the drug’s effects to a home’s electrical system handling a power surge.
While healthy cells act like a properly grounded and installed circuit, cancer cells are more like a jumble of mismatched wires and faulty fuses. DH20931 overwhelms cells not with electricity, but with fats.
He said: “When that surge goes into the cancer cells, they cannot handle the amount of power they are getting. The fuses burn out, the cell can’t handle the surge and it dies.”
The compound was developed at the University of Florida in the lab of Sukwong Hong.
Hong, now a professor at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, created DH20931 as one of many drug candidates tested for efficacy in Narayan’s lab.
In the study, researchers implanted human triple-negative breast cancer tumours into mice and treated them with DH20931.
The drug significantly slowed tumour growth without causing noticeable weight loss or signs of toxicity in the animals. In separate lab experiments, it also showed activity against other breast cancer subtypes.
In addition to increasing lipid levels, DH20931 triggers a second stress signal by flooding cells with calcium.
Together, these effects disrupt the mitochondria, the structures that produce a cell’s energy, ultimately leading to cell death.
Narayan said: “It does not just follow one pathway but it goes through multiple pathways. It’s a two-hit hypothesis.
“These pathways are common in all breast cancer types and other solid tumours, so we think this drug can be useful not only in triple-negative breast cancer but potentially other cancers as well.”
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