Nat Commun: Phosphate oxide promotes the dry and immuno-induced properties of pancreatic cancer stem cells.

Over the past decade, great progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of different cancers; however, this is not the case for pancreatic catheter adenocarcinoma (PDAC), which is now the fourth most common cause of cancer-related deaths and is expected to become the second deadliest tumor by 2030.
at the time of diagnosis, 20% of patients showed localized diseases (and therefore may be removable and curable), 15-20% of patients showed local advanced tumors (non-removable), and the rest showed metastases.
more complex, even the strongest chemotherapy programs can only extend the total lifetime to about 11 months, rarely leading to long-term progression-free survival.
, we need new ways to identify new and more effective treatments for PDAC.
previous studies have shown that the ineffectiveness of existing anti-PDAC therapies is thought to be due to the presence of a subsysty of tumor cells called cancer stem cells (CSCs), which are functionally malleable and have exclusive ability to cause tumors, resist chemotherapy and metastasis.
, researchers recently written in Nature Communications describing a two-dimensional in vitro system for long-term pancreatic CCS, suitable for biological and CSC-specific studies.
By altering the carbon source from glucose to semi-lactose in vitro, the researchers forced PDAC cells to utilize oxyphosphate (OXPHOS), resulting in the abundance of CSCs, manifested in increased expression of CSC biomarkers and poroid genes, greater tumor-causing potential, induced but reversible resting, increased OXPHOS activity, increased invasiveity, and increased immune escapism.
this CSC-rich approach can facilitate the discovery of new CSC-specific markers for future development into PDAC-based therapeutic targets.
.