Researchers search for way to stop bowel cancer growing
SCIENTISTS in Glasgow are launching a new Cancer Research UK-funded project to find a way to stop bowel cancer cells hijacking the body.
The team, based at the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute in the city, will focus on a particular system inside the human body, called the Wnt pathway – a key messaging system controlling growth.
A specific genetic mutation can cause this system to tell cells to grow and produce new cancer cells out of control.
The cancer cells then hijack the pathway and prevent it from growing healthy cells, effectively starving the body of healthy growth. This can eventually lead to the growth of tumours in the lining of the bowel.
Dr Nadia Nasreddin, researcher at the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute in Professor Sansom’s group, said: “We hope to find a way to help healthy cells fight the mutant cell colonisation of the bowel lining, by using drugs that can promote healthy cell growth.
“If we boost the Wnt pathway in normal cells, we can improve their health, restore their capacity to divide and produce new healthy cells, and reduce the ability of cancer cells to grow in the bowel.”
With funding of £357,759 from Cancer Research UK, the project will help tackle bowel cancer, also known as colorectal cancer, the second most common cause of cancer deaths in the UK.*
Treatment options for bowel cancer remain limited, particularly for patients who are diagnosed at later stages of the disease, making the search for new therapies vital. Scotland is disproportionately affected by the disease with around 4,000 people diagnosed each year. **
Bowel cancer is caused by changes in the DNA (called mutations) in important cells in the intestine called intestinal stem cells.
These cells maintain the intestine’s lining by constantly dividing to replace old or worn-out cells with healthy new ones. These cells live within a specific environment, characterised by high activity of the Wnt pathway.
Eighty per cent of colon cancer cases are caused by mutations in a particular gene which is responsible for controlling the Wnt pathway environment and can be inherited.
When this mutation occurs, it creates a very high Wnt environment which results in the cell’s dividing and producing new cells faster than normal.
It also produces a molecule that deprives normal cells of their Wnt environment causing normal intestinal stem cells to stop dividing and producing new ones.
This results in mutant cells in the lining of the intestine that, over time, replace the normal cells eventually forming into a tumour.
The team will test four different molecules to determine which best supports the health of normal intestinal stem cells in mouse models.
Researchers will further develop any which show a clear benefit to survival into drugs for human use.
Science engagement lead at Cancer Research UK, Sam Godfrey, said: “We are delighted to fund this exciting research project which looks at the beginnings of cancer and seeks ways to prevent it developing.
“Harnessing our own body’s power to support healthy growth and halt the excessive growth which results in tumours could lead to the kind of breakthrough which transforms the way we see, and treat, bowel cancer.”
Bowel cancer kills 16,800 people in the UK (1,700 in Scotland) every year and is increasingly being diagnosed in younger people.*
A recent study by the American Cancer Society published in The Lancet Oncology showed early-onset bowel cancer rates in adults aged 25-49 are rising in 27 of 50 countries studied and are rising faster in young women in Scotland and England than in young men.**
