In a breakthrough for understanding metastases, researchers have found that, as metastatic cancers spread to different parts of the body, they adapt their metabolism to the tissue in which they grow. The findings, which help further break down the puzzle of metastasis, are published in PNAS.
Metabolism in the body is an important target for cancer treatments, where the focus is on stopping the progress of cancer cells.
“Obviously, the local environment affects the cancer cells more than previously known. The metastatic tumours should show the same metabolic properties no matter where in the body they are located, but we discovered that the cancer cells largely adapted their metabolism to the new tissue in order to continue to develop and grow. This is important knowledge, which shows that we cannot consider the metastases as their original tumours,” says Fariba Roshanzamir, PhD in Systems and Synthetic Biology at Chalmers and the study’s lead author.
Cutting off cancer metabolism
Fariba Roshanzamir works in Professor Jens Nielsen’s research group at Chalmers and has, together with Swedish and international colleagues, been able to establish the groundbreaking results. The study focused primarily on triple-negative breast cancer but the conclusions can, according to the researchers, be applied to all types of metastatic cancer. This opens new doors to develop more effective treatments.
“If we manage to shut down the metabolism in a tumour, it will stop working and this study provides important keys to better understand what to target. Selecting metabolic inhibitors that specifically target the metastases in the organs to which the tumour has spread, rather than treating them as their original tumours, is of great importance to be able to find good strategies for treatments in the future,” she says.
