J Clin invest: a new combination therapy targeting cancer metastasis

April 28, 2019 news / bioin / - an experimental combination drug therapy that attacks DNA integrity of cancer cells is expected to become a new cancer therapy in the future Scientists at the University of Alberta (UA) use both drugs to increase DNA damage to human breast cancer cells and reduce their ability to repair themselves The researchers were able to significantly shrink the tumor and prevent metastasis of breast cancer in mice "Most cancers do not cause death from primary tumors Almost all of the patients died because of metastasis Previously, we found that the cancer cell subsets responsible for metastasis are particularly resistant to treatment But when we combine these two drugs, it makes these cells as sensitive as other cancer cells This is an unprecedented new discovery " Said Armin Gamper, assistant professor of oncology at UA Photo source: compared with normal cells, the DNA damage degree of cancer cells is higher The purpose of this experimental therapy is to selectively kill cancer cells by targeting the DNA repair mechanism of cancer cells The researchers found that after combination therapy, cancer cells that tried to proliferate with unrepaired DNA failed and died in the process The team also found that compared with traditional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy, the treatment had few side effects "This combination is very well tolerated," said Gamper, who is also a member of the Northern Alberta Cancer Institute "If we can be sure that this treatment works as well in patients as in mice, it may, at least in some cases, replace traditional chemotherapy because its side effects appear to be much smaller." The drugs used in the study have been tested in clinical trials, or used alone, or in combination with other treatment methods, but have not been used at the same time According to the team, this will greatly speed up the process of combining the two for a new clinical trial Gamper and his team are working with health service clinicians at the Alberta cross Cancer Institute to launch a clinical trial to test people's tolerance to a combination of drugs At the same time, researchers are expanding their work to other types of cancer, as well as identifying biomarkers - the biomarkers that patients can most benefit from new treatments This will allow them to tailor precise cancer treatments to individual patients "The idea behind this combination is that it will target many different cancers, not just breast cancer," explains Gamper So we want to test it in other tumors that are known to have high levels of DNA damage, such as ovarian cancer, colon cancer, and some other types of breast cancer We'll start with these tumors and see how they affect other tumors that don't have this high level of DNA damage " This was published in Journal of clinical investigation Reference: amirali B Bukhari et al, inhibiting Wee1 and ATR kinases produces more selective synthetic lethality and suppresses metastasis, Journal of clinical investigation (2019) Doi: 10.1172/jci122622