Devel Cell: Heavy weight! Scientists have discovered a special fatty acid that effectively kills cancer cells-- bi-high-gamma-linoleic acid

July 15, 2020 // In a recent study published in the international journal Developmental Cell, scientists from Washington State University and others found a fatty acid called dGLA, dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid or Researchers say DGLA induces iron death processes in animal models and real cancer cells, and iron death is a type of iron-dependent cell death that researchers have found in recent years, and has done a lot of research in recent years on cell iron death because of its association with multiple diseasespicture source: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain research results may help researchers develop new anti-cancer therapies, researcher Jennifer Watts saidDGLA is a small amount of polyunsaturated fatty acid sourcing in the human body, which is rare in the human diet, and researchers have done little compared to other fatty acids such as fish oilresearchers used the beautiful hidden rod nematode as an animal model, including DGLA diet fatty acids for nearly 20 years, the beautiful hidden rod nematode is often used by researchers in molecular biology research, because its body transparency, but also can help scientists easily study the cell level activity of the whole body, the results of the study of the beautiful hidden rod nematode can also be transferred to human cell researchresearchers found that feeding nematodes with DGLA-rich bacteria may kill all reproductive cells in nematodes and stem cells that produce reproductive cells, and that cell death tends to carry multiple signs of iron deathresearcher Marcos Perez said: 'Many of the mechanisms observed in our online worm study are consistent with signs of cell iron death in mammalian systems, including the presence of redox iron ions and cells' inability to repair oxidizing lipidsGLA can induce iron death in human cancer cells, and when DGLA interacts with another fatty acid called ether lipid, it can help cancer cells produce a protective effect against DGLA, and when ether is removed, the rate of death of body cells in the presence of DGLA acceleratesthe researchers also found that the scary hidden nematodes may be a useful animal model to help researchers study the mechanism by which iron death occurs in cells, and recently received a $1.4 million grant from NIH to help study what mechanisms can the nematode's reproductive cells become sensitive to DGLA and what role mitochondrial plays in the death of iron cellsOriginal origins from the: Marcos APerez, Leslie Magtanong, Scott JDixon, et alDietarys Lipids Ferroptosis in Caenorhabdis elegans and Human Cancer Cells, Cell (2020)DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2020.06.019