Science Advances: Changes in cell behavior after neuroblastoma drug resistance

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have discovered one of
the reasons why neuroblastomas in children become resistant to chemotherapy.
These findings have important implications
for how future treatments can be designed.

Neuroblastoma is an aggressive cancer of the sympathetic nervous system, especially the adrenal glands
.
Despite intensive chemotherapy treatment, the disease is difficult to cure and children with aggressive variants have a poor
prognosis.
One reason is that tumors
often become resistant to drugs.
To understand what happens when tumors develop drug resistance, good disease models are needed to mimic the complex drug treatments given to patients today:

"Tumors in neuroblastoma patients look very different, and it is difficult to produce a model
that is representative of many patients.
This type of challenge often limits medical research"
.

However, the researchers have now succeeded in building a model in mice with human neuroblastoma tumor cells, which makes it possible to track the mechanisms that occur when certain tumor cells become resistant to
drugs.

"The reality is that tumor cells change, mimicking embryonic cells
at the stage of fetal development.
These embryonic tumor cells are more resistant to chemotherapy
.
Daniel Bessel, head of the research team that led the study, said
.

It has long been known that genetic changes are essential
for the formation and progression of neuroblastomas into aggressive tumors.
However, when it comes to resistance, it's not primarily genetic changes, but the behavior
of cells that quickly adapts to them.
The reasons why embryonic tumor cells respond weakly to drugs are not fully understood, but the researchers believe that cells in an immature state can adapt and survive
in a changing environment.

"Current chemotherapy treatments target rapidly dividing tumor cells
.
Our findings could help new treatments better cover the entire tumour to avoid developing drug resistance
.
" In future research, it will be important
to understand how to specifically target the embryonic state of neuroblastoma cells to cure patients.
”