Prostate news article, April 2006
| BLOCKING THE PROTEIN THAT CAUSES CANCER
TO SPREAD INTO THE BONES Published in Nature Reported by: Professor Roger S Kirby |
In a recent article released by Reuters it was reported that scientists appear to have identified and blocked the action of a protein linked to the spread of cancer cells to the bones.
The molecule, RANKL, is produced in bone marrow and research has shown that inhibiting this protein can stop cancerous cells from migrating to the bones. "RANKL is a protein which tells tumour cells to come to it," said Professor Josef Penninger, of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. "It sits on the bones and when tumour cells circulate in the body then RANKL attracts them into the bones," he told Reuters.
Once a cancer has spread beyond its original site in a process known as metastasis, it becomes much more serious and difficult to treat. An estimated 84% of patients with advanced prostate cancer develop bone metastases.
The findings, reported in the journal Nature, explain the puzzle of why certain cancers spread to the bones and how interfering with the process could help to prevent the spread of the disease.
When the researchers gave mice with skin cancer a drug that blocked RANKL, the rodents had fewer tumours in their bones than animals that were not treated, although the drug did not slow the spread of the cancer to other sites in the body.
Professor Penninger pointed out that, although up until now research has been done on mice, drugs that interfere with RANKL are in development and could be tested to demonstrate whether the findings holds true for humans. "Since there are novel inhibitors of RANKL far along in clinical development, the idea is that people who have cancer that is known to spread to bone can start taking this drug when they are diagnosed. It would inhibit how much bone metastases they would have" added D. Holstead Jones (University of Toronto and the lead author of the study).
Drugs that inhibit RANKL may also help to alleviate the severe pain that metastases can trigger and improve the quality of life of patients.