Chemotherapy kills cancer cells. But the way these cells die appears to be different than previously understood. Researchers have now uncovered a completely new way in which cancer cells die: due to the Schlafen11 gene. This is a very unexpected finding. Cancer patients have been treated with chemotherapy for almost a century, but this route to cell death has never been observed before. Where and when this occurs in patients will need to be further investigated. This discovery could ultimately have implications for the treatment of cancer patients.
Researchers discover new pathway to cancer cell death from chemotherapy
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New Chemotherapy-Induced Cancer Cell Suicide Pathway Uncovered
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Study sheds new light on immune system interactions with cancer
Cancers like melanoma are hard to treat, not least because they have a varied bag of tricks for defeating or evading treatments.
A combined research effort by scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science and researchers in the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam and the University of Oslo, Norway, shows exactly how tumors, in their battles to survive, will go so far as to starve themselves in order to keep the immune cells that would eradicate them from functioning.
The immunotherapies currently administered for melanomas work by removing obstacles that keep immune cells called T cells from identifying and killing tumor cells. Recent research suggested that in melanoma, another blocker could assist the T cells - this one to stop an enzyme called IDO1 that is overproduced by the cancer cells.
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IMAGE: Ribosomes (large, dark circles) working their way down a strand of mRNA. Proteins are forming to the top and bottom. Amino acid scarcity results in ribosome logjams view more
Credit: the Weizmann Institute of Science
Cancers like melanoma are hard to treat, not least because they have a varied bag of tricks for defeating or evading treatments. A combined research effort by scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science and researchers in the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam and the University of Oslo, Norway, shows exactly how tumors, in their battles to survive, will go so far as to starve themselves in order to keep the immune cells that would eradicate them from functioning.