Study shows how mitochondria can shield cancer cells from chemotherapy

By Nick Lavars

December 15, 2019FacebookTwitter

• FlipboardLinkedIn

Mitochondria seen in red, cell nuclei (blue) and mtDNA (white dots)

Salk Institute/Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center

VIEW 1 IMAGES

Chemotherapy is a powerful weapon in the fight against cancer, but the complex nature of the disease means that it doesn’t always produce the desired result. Scientists at the Salk Institute have been researching some of the cellular processes behind these evasive abilities, uncovering a new mechanism that could pave the way for new treatments that see chemotherapy maintain the upper hand.

The work was carried out at the Salk Institute’s Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory, where medical scientists led by Gerry Shadel set out to investigate the role mitochondria might play in the effectiveness of chemotherapy.

Mitochondria is best known as the power generator of the vast majority of cells, but the scientists have found that it can also act as an early warning sign when something’s not quite right. While most of the DNA we carry is packed inside the nucleus of the cell, mitochondria packs its own small set of DNA, called mtDNA.

When our cells become stressed or are under attack by viruses or chemicals, such as those in chemotherapy drugs, the mitochondria responds by releasing its mtDNA and instigating an immune response to get on top of the threat. When this happens, a set of genes called interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) spring into action.

These ISGs perform the role of shielding the DNA inside the cell’s nucleus. Unfortunately, it plays the same protective role when it comes to chemotherapy drugs that target the DNA inside cancer cells. The team observed this process at play in melanoma cancer cells grown in culture, and again in mice, where higher levels of ISGs led to higher resistance to chemotherapy drug doxyrubicin.

In this way, the mitochondria acts as a “canary in a coal mine” according to the researchers, serving as an early warning that the cells are under attack. But when this release of mtDNA is triggered by doxyrubicin, it has the undesired effect of protecting the nuclear DNA the drug is designed to attack. With this new understanding, however, comes potential new ways to intervene.

“It says to me that if you can prevent damage to mitochondrial DNA or its release during cancer treatment, you might prevent this form of chemotherapy resistance,” Shadel says.

Shadel and his colleagues are now working towards follow up studies to better understand these processes. The research has been published in the journal Nature Metabolism.

Source: Salk Institute

NO FLYING WIGS – Human Hair. Human/Hair Synthetic. Synthetic.

I am an Oncology Nurse Clinician and experienced Breast Cancer. I was totally unprepared for the patient side. I navigated through a mastectomy and chemotherapy treatment. Wham. I began losing my hair. I had no idea what products and services were available. I found a salon that sold wigs and made my appointment. The salon had chair stations overlooking the parking lot. Now with my hair now dripping off my head I tried on a bunch of wigs and found one that I thought would work. I sadly drove home with my wig in a bag to figure it out for myself.

Taking a break after chemotherapy our family was off to Disney World for some well-deserved family fun. One of our first rides was Splash Mountain. Thanks to our daughter’s fast reaction she caught my wig as it started flying off my head.  There had to be a better way – Susan’s Special Needs custom wig fitting business was born.

We are now Susan’s @ Antonino Salon here to help you during the loss of your hair whether from chemotherapy, alopecia or other. Depending upon your chemotherapy drug and cycle will determine how long you will be experiencing hair loss. That will help you decide what is right for you - Synthetic, Human Hair/Synthetic Blend, Human Hair.

CALL 248-544-4287 FREE consultation to explore wig solutions right for you. We look forward to your visit. Susan's @ Antonino Salon, Birmingham, MI is by appointment only on Monday and Tuesday from 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM.

Exercise Advice for Surviving Cancer, and Maybe Avoiding It

New guidelines say exercise may help cancer patients live longer, or help you avoid getting cancer in the first place.

Image

CreditCreditKendrick Brinson for The New York Times

By Gretchen Reynolds

• Oct. 16, 2019

Even a little exercise may help people avoid and survive many types of cancer, according to new exercise guidelines released today that focus on how exercise affects cancer outcomes.

The guidelines, issued jointly by the American College of Sports Medicine, the American Cancer Society and 15 other international organizations, update almost decade-old recommendations with new science and specific advice about how much and what types of exercise may be the most needed, helpful and tolerable for anyone facing a cancer diagnosis.

Cancer is, of course, one of the world’s most common major diseases, with more than 18 million people globally diagnosed with some form of the condition in 2018. It also is often treatable and today, millions of people are cancer survivors.

But there are high fiscal and physical costs related to cancer. Treatments, while frequently effective, can leave people feeling ill, anxious, exhausted and frail, and may cause collateral damage to the heart or other parts of the body.

Sign Up for NYT Parenting

From the team at NYT Parenting: Get the latest news and guidance for parents. We'll celebrate the little parenting moments that mean a lot — and share stories that matter to families.

So, physicians, therapists and scientists, working with cancer patients, continue to look for accessible, inexpensive ways to improve the lives of cancer patients and also, more fundamentally, reduce the risk that someone will develop cancer in the first place.

Exercise was an obvious candidate. Whether aerobic or resistance, exercise is known to build strength, fight fatigue and lift gloom. But many researchers, clinicians, patients and their families have worried that it might be unsafe for people with cancer; that it might, somehow, make people’s condition worse.

In 2008, a large group of researchers convened to comb through the available science about exercise and cancer and decide if there was enough evidence to tell patients that they could and even should work out. In 2010, the group published its recommendations, which amounted to saying that exercise appeared to be safe for most people with cancer and they should try, in general, to be active.

Since then, however, there has been “exponential growth” in research related to exercise and cancer, says Kathryn Schmitz, a professor of public health and cancer control at Penn State University and the immediate past president of the American College of Sports Medicine.

So, last year, she and almost 40 other researchers from 17 international health groups gathered to determine whether there was sufficient evidence now to refine the recommendations about cancer and exercise. The group wound up gathering hundreds of studies involving animals and people that examined the impacts of exercise on dozens of aspects of cancer risk and cancer recovery.

Editors’ Picks

A Couple Trades Up in the Financial District. Which Apartment Did They Choose?

How Moving to France and Having Children Led a Black American to Rethink Race

48 Hours in the Strange and Beautiful World of TikTok

And they concluded that there was more than enough evidence to start suggesting that exercise should be a part of standard treatment for most people with cancer. They also found that exercise should be considered a means to substantially drop the risk of developing cancer in the first place.

Specifically, the scientists, in separate reviews being published today in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise and CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, report that physically active people have as much as 69 percent less risk of being diagnosed with certain cancers than sedentary people. Exercise seems to be especially potent at lessening the likelihood of developing seven common malignancies, the new recommendations add: colon, breast, endometrial, kidney, bladder, esophageal and stomach cancers.

The recommendations also point out that, in multiple recent studies, exercise changed the trajectory of cancer once it began. In animal experiments cited in the new reviews, exercise altered the molecular environment around some tumors, stalling or even halting their growth. And in people, exercising during and after cancer treatment was associated with longer subsequent life spans, the reviews found.

Exercise also seems to lessen cancer patients’ feelings of anxiety or depression and their sometimes debilitating fatigue, the new recommendations report.

And while there had been some concern that exercise might increase the risks for or severity of upper-body lymphedema, the swelling and fluid retention that is common among women recovering from breast cancer, exercise was not associated with an increased risk

Based on these findings, the authors of the new recommendations conclude that people with cancer should aim to exercise at least three times per week at a moderate intensity, such as by brisk walking, for at least 30 minutes, and also try to lift weights twice a week, if possible.

These recommendations are a bit lighter than the standard, governmental guidelines for the general public, which call for moderate aerobic exercise five times per week, plus several sessions of weight training.

Dr. Schmitz says the available science indicates that working out three times a week is the most likely to be feasible and safe for almost everyone with cancer. “The evidence is clear that going from nothing” — from being totally sedentary — “to something is helpful” for people completing or recovering from cancer treatment, she says. Check with your doctor before starting an exercise regimen, but for those who are able to, she adds, “more is better.”

She and her colleagues hope that future studies will help to pin down more precise, granular doses of exercise that doctors can prescribe to aid in cancer treatment and prevention in general and against specific types of cancer in particular. They also hope to determine whether or not there is any upper limit on the amount of healthy exercise for people with cancer.

But for now, Dr. Schmitz says, the primary recommendation she and her colleagues would offer to anyone dealing with or hoping to avoid cancer is: “Get up. Move. It’s so simple and so essential. Get up and move.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/well/move/exercise-advice-for-surviving-cancer-and-maybe-avoiding-it.html

No Painkillers, No Pain

Preventing one of the worst side effects of cancer treatment, without drugs.

There is now a dramatically improved line of defense against oral mucositis, a common and often debilitating side effect of cancer treatment.

It’s light.

People undergoing radiation and other forms of cancer treatment are at high risk of developing oral mucositis, or extremely painful ulcers in the mouth. According to new worldwide guidelines co-authored by a University at Buffalo researcher, a form of low-dose light treatment—called photobiomodulation therapy—can now be considered a go-to remedy for many of those patients. This therapy can effectively prevent one of the worst aspects of treating cancer, not only improving quality of life during treatment but also potentially improving outcomes by encouraging completion of treatment regimens.

An all-too-common problem

The mouth sores associated with oral mucositis can make talking and eating difficult, derail treatment, and even result in hospitalization and a feeding tube. And the condition is prevalent, affecting close to 40% of patients on chemotherapy, nearly 70% of those getting stem cell transplants and almost 80% of those receiving radiation therapy.

Opioid painkillers are frequently prescribed to counter the pain, but those come with their own problematic side effects, including the potential for addiction.

A safer solution

Light therapies have existed for decades. At a high power, often in the form of a laser, light is used to cut or destroy tissue. But at a low level, it has the ability to relieve pain and promote healing.

“I have increasingly appreciated the role of light as a fundamental element for health,” says Praveen Arany, assistant professor of oral biology and biomedical engineering at UB and president of the World Association for photobiomoduLation Therapy (WALT). Arany’s research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of low-dose light therapy, as well as making it more affordable and effective. He is currently testing a device that would allow people to self-administer the therapy at home.

Arany is among 16 global experts who issued the new guidelines. Among other findings, they identified five new protocols, recommending light therapy for stem cell transplant patients and head and neck cancer patients receiving radiation therapy. No major short-term side effects were reported.

“This is a major milestone for the field,” Arany says. “We are confident these guidelines will provide a clear path for several exciting clinical applications, ranging from Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease to depression, age-related macular degeneration, arthritis, hair loss, wound healing and more.”

http://www.buffalo.edu/how/articles.host.html/content/shared/www/eub/here-is-how/Oral-Light-Therapy.detail.html?utm_source=Flipboard&utm_medium=BDM-US-PromotedContent-OralLightTherapy&utm_campaign=FM-Reputation-Fall19&utm_content=OralLightTherapy

Yes it's a wig. We can help.
Check us out on Google "Susan's @ Antonino Salon". Alopecia. Chemotherapy. Hairloss.  Call us at 248-544-4287.

How current hormone treatments can send breast cancer cells into a dormant “sleeper mode”

By Rich Haridy

September 02, 2019

• FacebooTwitterFlipboardLinkedIn

The study offers new insights into what triggers certain breast cancer cells to become dormant 'sleeper' cells (red) or remain active cancer cells (green).

Luca Magnani et al. Nature Communications 2019

VIEW 1 IMAGE

The looming threat of a relapse is something that hovers over many cancer survivors. Breast cancer in particular is known to enter extremely long dormant periods, and a new study led by researchers from Imperial College London is suggesting the drugs used to initially treat the cancer may be responsible, triggering some cancer cells to enter a sleeper state.

Around 70 percent of breast cancers are classified as oestrogen-receptor positive. This means the cancer utilizes oestrogen to grow, and following an initial surgery hormone drug therapy is usually administered. However, the relapse rate for patients undergoing this kind of hormone therapy is about 30 percent, and the cancer can unexpectedly recur as late as 20 years after initial treatment.

“For a long time scientists have debated whether hormone therapies – which are a very effective treatment and save millions of lives – work by killing breast cancer cells or whether the drugs flip them into a dormant ‘sleeper’ state,” says Luca Mangani, lead author on the new study.

Investigating thousands of breast cancer cells in the lab, the new study discovered current hormone treatments can in fact trigger some cancer cells to enter a dormant phase. Not only that, but the researchers also suspect this dormant phase to be part of the process the cancer cells move through before ultimately becoming resistant to the hormone therapy.

“These sleeper cells seem to be an intermediate stage to the cells becoming resistant to the cancer drugs,” explains Iros Barozzi, co-author on the new study. “The findings also suggest the drugs actually trigger the cancer cells to enter this sleeper state.”

This new study in no way suggests women be hesitant in undergoing hormone therapy to treat breast cancer but instead it directs researchers to new understandings into how cancer cells enter dormant phases and why they reawaken years later. Answering these questions could help prevent long-term breast cancer relapses.

“If we can unlock the secrets of these dormant cells, we may be able to find a way of preventing cancer coming back, either by holding the cells in permanent sleep mode, or be waking them up and killing them,” says Mangani.

The new study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Source: Imperial College London

https://newatlas.com/medical/low-gravity-kill-cancer-cells-space/

Can low gravity kill cancer? Scientists prepare to study cells in space

By Nick Lavars

September 02, 2019

• FaceboTwitterFlipboarLinkedIn

Next year, scientists will send cancer cells for study aboard the International Space Station

NASA

VIEW 2 IMAGES

We’ve been sending humans to space for more than half a century now, but there is still so much to learn about how a low-gravity environment impacts our physiology. An Australian scientist has been looking into such matters through simulation studies here on Earth, and with early indications that space can kill off the majority of cancer cells without the need for drugs, is now preparing to launch his experiments toward the International Space Station for further investigation.

There are quite a few studies that have been completed or are ongoing at the International Space Station that explore the effects of low-gravity on living organisms and human physiology.

NASA has previously studied cellular changes of mice and mussels on the ISS to gain new insights into the human immune system and looked into how the microgravity environment can lead to vision impairment. The agency’s twin study, meanwhile, comparing the biology of an identical twin who spent almost a year at the ISS with the other who did not, continues to be one of the more intriguing examples.

But the intricacies of how cancer cells behave in the microgravity environment remains largely unexplored. Biomedical engineer Joshua Chou has been conducting experiments in his laboratory at the University of Technology Sydney to advance our understanding of this, using a micro-gravity simulator to observe how cancer cells respond and the potential reasons why.

“Prior to this research, most focus has been on the genetic expression of cancer under microgravity,” Chou explains to New Atlas. “But no one has looked at the mechanisms, and the strategy of how we are approaching this is to identify the sensing receptors in the cancer, in hope of tricking them.”

Scientists hope to learn more about the behavior of cancer cells by launching them into space

vitanovski/Depositphotos

Chou and his student Anthony Kirollos exposed ovarian, breast, nose and lung cancer cells to the micro-gravity simulator for a 24-hour period, and found that it caused 80 to 90 percent of them to die, as first reported by the ABC. The scientists believe this is because the lack of gravitational force on the cells influences how they communicate with one another and makes them unable to sense their surroundings, something they call mechanical unloading.

“I have to clarify that microgravity does affect other cells, like bone cells, that is why astronauts lose bone,” Chou tells us. “But having said that, the different tissues and organs in the body respond differently, and it’s just that we found bone and cancers are super sensitive to the effects of microgravity.”

Why this mechanical unloading effect hits cancer cells harder than most is one of the questions Chou hopes to shed some light on when he launches his experiment for the ISS next year. In the first Australian research mission to the ISS, the cells will be packed into a device smaller than a tissue box and studied within the micro-gravity environment for a period of one week.

“Twenty-four hours before launch, we will introduce the cells into microfluidic devices, they will go up to the ISS and the experiment will be carried out for seven days, but won’t return until after 28 days at the ISS,” Chou says. “Then of course we will do analysis upon its return. But we also designed technologies to study them while they are alive on the ISS.”

Sending cancer patients to space for treatment certainly seems a fanciful idea, and Chou isn’t looking to change that through his inventive line of investigation. The hope is that the experiments can shed light on the specific receptors and sensors behind the mechanical unloading effect on cancer cells, so scientists can design drugs that mimic the same effects here on Earth.

"I see what we are developing on working in conjunction with existing therapies and not replacing anything,“ Chou says. “What we hope is that it will increase efficiency of current drugs to give the patient an added advantage by disrupting the normal function of the cancer. Because if the cells can't 'function as a team' then it becomes easier to kill them.”

Source: ABC

https://newatlas.com/medical/low-gravity-kill-cancer-cells-space/