Journal of Cell Science: University of Southern California study shows that semi-lactose can help destroy cancer cells

Introduction: Like all cells in the body, cancer cells need to metabolize glucose to promote their proliferation and growthIn particular, cancer cells infinite proliferation, easy metastasis characteristics, so that they than normal cells metabolize glucose much fasterRecently, researchers at the University of Southern California in the United States discovered a weakness of cancer cells: another monosaccharide, semi-lactose, cannot be metabolized by cancer cells, providing new ideas for treating cancerWith the progress of medical technology, there are more and more methods of cancer treatment, such as surgical treatment, chemotherapy, traditional Chinese medicine treatment and so onAlthough there are many treatments, different treatments have varying degrees of side effects, such as hair lossSome treatments can lead to poor physical condition, reduce the quality of life of patients and so on, a new study on the metabolism of cancer cells shows that cancer cells that carry a common cancer-causing gene are exposed to semi-lactose and dieThe study was led by Dongqing Zheng, a doctoral student at Nicholas Graham's Lab, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Southern California, and published in the journal Cell ScienceTitled "AKT but not MYC promotes reactive oxygen species-mediated cell death in oxidative culture"The study showed that cancer-causing genes can cause metabolic defects in cancer cells, causing cancer cells to be inflexible about changes in the sugar supplyNormally, cells grow by metabolizing glucose, and most normal cells can grow through semi-lactoseHowever, the team found that cancer cells carrying the AKT gene were unable to process semi-lactose, so they were treated with semi-lactose and they would dieresearchers used a metabolomic method and found that AKT expression cells that died in semi-lactose culture experienced an increase in glutathione metabolismProteomics showed that AKT expression cells that died in semi-lactose also increased the decay of unrighteously mediated mRNA, a sign of oxidative stress sensitivitySo they measured levels of reactive oxygen (ROS) and found that semi-lactose only induces ROS in cells that express AKTIn addition, semi-lactose-induced AKT expression cell death requires reactive oxygen They later confirmed that semi-lactose was transduced by raising the AKT signal, thus inducing the death of ros-mediated breast cancer cells These results show that in the absence of MYC, AKT limits the flexibility of cancer cells for oxidation phosphorylation the team also found that while the oxidation process of semi-lactose did cause the death of AKT-type cancer cells, when cells produced a MUTATION in the MYC gene, the semi-lactose did not kill the cells "So if there's a drug that inhibits glycoenzyme, it can be applied to patients with AKT mutations," Graham said But it should not be used in patients with MYC mutations, because in theory semi-lactose does not work for those MYC mutant cancer cells worth noting that when cancer cells were exposed to semi-lactose for 15 days, some of them began to proliferate again In this regard, Zheng explained: "One possibility is that there may be a small group of people against the existence of semi-lactose resistance." Another possibility is that some cancer cells are highly adaptable and, after two weeks of exposure to semi-lactose treatment, self-adapt and reprogram Graham says the systematic biology of cancer treatment is different from traditional treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, because it targets the metabolic processes of cancer cells It aims to identify drugs without the side effects of traditional chemotherapy However, in many metabolic therapies for cancer, relapse is common But these treatments still show strong initial results before the cancer cells partially recur He also said their lab will try to find out which types of combination treatments can be used to detect cancer cells containing the AKT gene, and to study drugs specifically designed to develop more effective treatments