A research team from the University of Konstanz has discovered that a special inhibitor could prevent the formation of cancer metastases.
Kassel – Around half a million people in Germany are diagnosed every year Cancer. Thanks to modern treatment methods, many cancer patients have a good chance of defeating the disease. After successful treatment, however, those affected are often afraid that the cancer could come back.
Tumors are usually only discovered when they have already spread throughout the body, i.e. have formed metastases. A team of scientists from the University of Konstanz has now apparently discovered a novel active ingredient that could give hope to cancer patients.
Fighting cancer: Research team discovers new type of inhibitor – it sticks cells together
A new type of inhibitor is supposed to stick cancer cells together and thereby make them immobile. This is to prevent tumor cells from penetrating healthy tissue. Metastases could be suppressed in this way. The researchers around the biologist Christof Hauck at the University of Konstanz describe this effect in a publication as “Lockdown for tumor cells“. The results were published in the online edition of the scientific journal “Cell Chemical Biology” released.
In people who have cancer, cell growth is out of control. The newly discovered inhibitor is said to switch off a crucial enzyme in the tumor cells, which controls all cellular processes in the human body such as growth, proliferation, differentiation and movement. If this enzyme, the protein phosphatase PPM1F, which is often present in large quantities in malignant tumors, is switched off, the cells can no longer move.
Cancer research: Inhibitor is intended to prevent the spread of tumor cells
The inhibitor sticks to the cancer cell, so to speak, which then has to remain and can no longer move in the body. As a result, it cannot penetrate healthy tissue and the cancer cannot spread.
“It may still be a distant dream, but being able to stop tumors from metastasizing would be a major step forward,” says Tanja Grimm, first author of the study, in a press release. However, it may be years before the “lockdown for cancer cells” can actually be applied to patients. Because the starting point of the research team must first be researched in further studies. (Helena Gries)
Thanks to an innovative cancer treatment, patients are cancer-free even after ten years. The therapy is also used in Germany.
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