According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths in the country. Also, 85% of lung cancers are classified as non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Scientists from Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern sought to find which metabolic features might predict aggressiveness of the tumor. This new research has been published in Cancer Discovery. The team of scientists has developed an isotope assay to study cancer metabolism in 90 patients whom tumors were surgically removed.
In this research, the scientists followed for up to 11 years after surgery. They worked to access metabolic properties in human non-small cell lung cancers and sought out properties that correlate with how cancer progressed after removal of primary tumor. They analyzed the cancers which metastasized faster so as to block the pathways used by those tumors for spread. In this study, the scientists discovered that almost all NSCLC tumors incorporated carbon from glucose into the TCA cycle than lung cancer tissue surrounding the tumor. It was also found that patients with highest incorporation had worsen outcomes. The CRI scientists implant the same tumors into mice and it showed that by blocking glucose’s ability to feed the TCA cycle suppressed metastatic spread. The study aims at guiding future research to understand how the metabolic pathways promote progression of cancer and whether these can be safety blocked or not.
“We already knew not all tumors used the same metabolic pathways, but it has been difficult to tell which pathways actually matter in terms of cancer mortality,” Dr. DeBerardinis said. “Our study shows isotope tracing, performed in patients with cancer, can identify pathways that predict cancer spread, even far into the future.”
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