Scientists have identified a new compound that blocks the spread of pancreatic and other cancers in animal models
Scientists at NIH/National Center For Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) have identified a new compound named metarrestin that blocks the spread of pancreatic and other cancers in animal models.
Metastasis is the spread of cancer cells from the place where they first formed to another part of the body.
In metastasis, cancer cells break away from the original (primary) tumor, travel through the blood or lymph system, and form a new tumor in other organs or tissues of the body. The new, metastatic tumor is the same type of cancer as the primary tumor. Doctors typically give chemotherapy to try to kill undetected cancer cells left behind and prevent the cancer from coming back.
“Our results show metarrestin is a very promising agent that we should continue to investigate against metastasis”
Several drugs aimed at stopping cancer growth and killing cancer cells have been studied. “However, there is no single approved drug specifically aimed at treating metastasis. Our results show metarrestin is a very promising agent that we should continue to investigate against metastasis,” said co-author Juan Marugan, Ph.D., group leader of the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Chemical Genomics Center.
Metarrestin treated mice lived longer and also had fewer tumors than mice that did not receive treatment. These results were published in Science Translational Medicine.
Metarrestin breaks down an incompletely understood component of cancer cells called the perinucleolar compartment (PNC). PNCs are found only in cancer cells, and in a higher number of cells in advanced cancer, when it has spread to other sites in the body.
Co-author Sui Huang, M.D., Ph.D., and her colleagues at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, had earlier shown that the more cancer cells with PNCs in a tumor, the more likely it would spread. Her findings suggested that reducing PNCs might translate to less cancer progression and possibly better outcomes in patients.
“Cancer cells are rapidly dividing and need to make more proteins than healthy cells to help carry out various activities, including the ability to spread,” Rudloff said. “Interfering with the system stalls cancer cell metastasis,” he added.
Metarrestin potentially could be effective as a therapy after cancer surgery. Because advanced cancers are difficult to completely remove with surgery, metarrestin could be added to chemotherapy to prevent spread of cancer cells.
The scientists plan to file an Investigational New Drug (IND) application in the fall with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after collection of pre-clinical data. FDA IND approval is necessary before a candidate drug can be tested in patients.
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