Scientists show it’s possible to reverse key process that allows cancer cells to grow
In a discovery that may come as a boon for the patients of pancreatic cancer, scientists have shown it is possible to reverse a key process that allows pancreatic cancer cells to grow and spread around the body. These findings, published in Nature, show that a protein called GREM1 is key to regulating the type of cells found in pancreatic cancer – and manipulating its levels can both fuel and reverse the ability of these cells to change into a more aggressive subtype.
Pancreatic cancer has a notoriously high mortality rate, with just seven per cent of patients surviving for five years or more. Every year, more than 10,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with the disease, with around 9,000 deaths.
Scientists from the Institute of Cancer Research conducted studies in mice and on mini pancreases made in a laboratory, where they manipulated the level of the gremlin protein in the system.
When the gene, and therefore the protein, was eliminated, tumours were rapidly converted into a more dangerous and invasive form.
In a matter of days, every tumour cell had been converted from the more harmless form into the more dangerous mesenchymal cancer cells.
The absence of “gremlin” also meant the cancer was more likely to spread to other organs. In nine out of 10 gremlin-less mice, for example, cancer spread from the pancreas into the liver.
In contrast, when the gremlin protein was working normally, the cancer spread in just 15 per cent of the laboratory animals.
As well as curtailing Grem1 production, the scientists also boosted the concentration of the protein to far beyond the normal level and found this had a beneficial effect.
Gremlin therapy can ‘reverse the fate’ of dangerous cells
Writing in their study, published in Nature, the scientists said that in high quantities, the gremlin protein “caused almost complete” reversal of cells that had already morphed into the more dangerous guise.
This, they said, indicated that high Grem1 activity was able to “reverse the fate” of the dangerous cells.