Studying People with Early Grey Hair Leads to Sarcoma Clue
A new study from Copenhagen University may have found a new treatment for the sickest patients with sarcomas. Sarcomas are cancer tumours found in bones, muscles or fatty tissue. Sarcomas are cancer tumours found in bones, muscles or fatty tissue. Complex and difficult to treat, it is a rare type of cancer seen in only one per cent of cancer patients.
Researchers noticed that people with certain rare disorders were both more likely to have early grey hairs and wrinkles as well as having a high risk of developing cancer.
“We have learned that sarcoma patients whose cancer cells have a high expression of the cep135 protein are worse off. But inhibiting a gene called plk1 also inhibits growth of the sarcoma cells, and this suggests that we can target the treatment of the sickest sarcoma patients,” says Associate Professor Morten Scheibye-Knudsen, lead researcher of the new study which is published in Nature.
Methods for identifying sarcoma patients’ prognoses are already available, as are different forms of treatment. But the new study has identified a new method.
“This is a new way of stratifying and possibly a new and better way of treating sarcoma. And the introduction of yet another method is always good news to patients. Because no two cancers are alike. Ideally, treatment should always be tailored to the individual patient,” Morten Scheibye-Knudsen stresses.
He hopes other researchers with access to the necessary test facilities will study his results in more detail and eventually design a new treatment. If the method turns out to work, he believes a new treatment may be available to patients in five to 10 years.
Grey hair, wrinkles and loss of fatty tissue at an early age
Morten Scheibye-Knudsen and his colleagues started out by studying patients suffering from the rare neurological disorders Werner’s syndrome, Nijmegen breakage syndrome and Ataxia-telangiectasia syndrome.
These patients experience symptoms of early ageing such as grey hair, wrinkles and loss of fatty tissue – and they have a high risk of developing cancer at an early age.
“Age-associated diseases such as cancer is one of my main areas of interest as a researcher at the Center for Healthy Aging. As we grow older, a lot of things happen to the body, and determining causality can be difficult. But in people suffering from, eg Werner’s syndrome, it is easier to see which genes are responsible for which processes. This gives us a molecular handle, so to speak,” says Morten Scheibye-Knudsen.
In order to establish why these patients develop cancer at an early age, the researchers compared gene expressions across the three disorders. Here they worked together with the company Insilico Medicine, whose large Pandaomics platform made it possible to identify gene mutations in thousands of different disorders. It turned out that cep135 is a common denominator for the cancer genes of the three disorders.
“This made us study the gene expressions of various cancers, and we learned that cep135 is associated with high mortality in, inter alia, sarcoma, but also in bladder cancer. Sarcoma was particularly interesting, as many Werner’s syndrome patients develop sarcoma,” explains Morten Scheibye-Knudsen.
Finally, the researchers sought to find ways to inhibit the sarcoma. Cep135 is not a useful target, as it is a so-called structural protein, which are difficult to target. Instead, the researchers learned that by inhibiting the plk1 gene they were able to target the sarcoma.
“The study indicates that we can use genetic diseases that exhibit accelerated aging to identify new treatment targets. In this study, we investigated cancer, but the method can in principle be used for all age-related diseases such as dementia, cardiovascular diseases and others,” says Morten Scheibye-Knudsen.
Source: University of Copenhagen
