Cancer Cell: A Big Discovery! A metabolic enzyme can inhibit the growth and spread of liver cancer cells

Liver cancer is very difficult to treat because of the complexity of its causesThere is no targeted and effective treatment for liver cancerA new study in the United States has found that an enzyme can block and inhibit the metabolic process of rapid growth and spread of liver cancer, a finding that could provide new treatments for liver cancer in the futurethe study, led by DrJorge Moscat, an adjunct professor at the Sanford Burnham Institute of Medicine in Sanford Burnham and professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell Medical School, published online June 25 in Cancer CellsThe"PKC/Ross Induce Sanphagy, Oxidative Phosphorylation, and NRF2 to Promote Liver Cancer Progression"about 27,000 people die of liver cancer each year in the United StatesThe cancer is linked tonon-alcoholic fatty liver(NAFLD), a disease that stores too much fat in the liver and is on the rise in the United States, which in turn is associated with more common diseases such as obesity,diabetesandmetabolic syndrome"The treatment of liver cancer is not particularly effective compared to other types of cancer, which is a devastating disease," said DrJorge Moscat, the study's author The originof liver cancer is related to many genetic mutations, but scientists do not fully understand which ones are the direct cause of cancer These mutations seem to play a key role in driving disease development, but they are difficult to stop or slow down, which is why we currently lack targeted and effective treatments for liver cancer "
this study shows that in mice and human liver cancer cells, low levels of protein kinase C (PKC) c/i are associated with tumor invasion, and the protein has a cancer-suppressing effect The researchers also described the metabolic pathways in which PKC/i directly blocks and inhibits tumor growth ,Moscat,(non-oncogenic vulnerabilities)。 Previous studies of non-carcinogenic vulnerability in his laboratory have shown that PKC/i plays a role in the of colorectal cancer in this study, Moscat describes how the loss of PKC/i promotes the proliferation of liver tumors In order to get the fuel needed to survive, liver cancer cells activate the metabolic process of burning glucose and lipids These two processes activate the NRF 2 protein, which regulates the expression of specific gene products, thus driving liver cell proliferation and tumor growth The researchers found that PKC/i can prevent liver cancer cells from using these metabolic processes As a result, when tumors lose PKC/i, they become aggressive team found that cancer cells proliferated rapidly when PCK/i was removed They also looked at the metabolic processes of these mice and the activation of the NRF2 protein Moscat and his team also studied 271 human liver cancer samples from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and found a significant decrease in the expression of PKC/i in invasive cancers In addition, the researchers studied surgical excision tissue in 139 liver cancer patients and found that the low expression of PKC/i in non-tumor tissue was associated with aggressive malignancies "We think PKC/i marks the aggressivenature of the disease," Moscat said We believe that patients with lower kinase levels are more likely to develop more invasive cancers in future studies, Moscat and his lab will explore whether it is possible to target PKC/i or its activated metabolic pathways as a potential treatment "Liver cancer is a terrible disease, but if we can regulate kinases or metabolic pathways through drugs, we have the potential to develop new treatments," Moscat said "