Scientists have made an important DNA discovery that could help cure one of the deadliest cancers.
A team of researchers from the UK and the US has found that pancreatic cancer can switch off molecules in one of the body’s most important genes, which helps the disease to grow and spread quickly.
Pancreatic cancer is the 12th most common cancer worldwide, with more than half a million people diagnosed each year. It has the worst survival rates of all the most common forms of the disease.
The deadly nature of pancreatic cancer has baffled experts for years, but the breakthrough offers hope in the search for a treatment that could eradicate the disease.
Dr Maria Hatziapostolou, from Nottingham Trent University’s John van Geest Cancer Research Centre, said: “This work, which has provided new understanding and knowledge of how the cancer behaves, will hopefully help pave the way for potential new treatments in the future.”
She added: “Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival of all the 20 common cancers. The survival of patients after five years has improved very little for some time and therefore it is extremely important that we find new ways to better understand this disease, how it spreads and why it is so aggressive.”
Pancreatic cancer is often diagnosed at an advanced stage when treatment options are limited, with more than half of patients dying within three months of diagnosis. High-profile figures to die from the disease include Alan Rickman, John Hurt, Steve Jobs and Patrick Swayze.
For the study, published in the journal Gastro Hep Advances, the researchers analyzed healthy as well as pancreatic cancer tissue samples. They found that pancreatic cancer triggered a process known as DNA methylation, which caused molecules in the normally beneficial HNF4A gene to turn off, causing tumors to grow extremely quickly.
The HNF4A gene is crucial to human health because it helps many of the body’s organs function properly. But the researchers discovered pancreatic cancer can secretly disable the gene’s benefits.
Hatziapostolou said: “Loss of HNF4A drives pancreatic cancer development and aggressiveness and we now know correlates with poor patient survival.”
Scientists from the University of Nottingham, Stanford University and the University of California and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, were also involved in the project.
Dr Chris Macdonald, the head of research at Pancreatic Cancer UK, which funded the study, said: “We desperately need friendlier and more effective treatment options for pancreatic cancer. The majority of pancreatic cancers are diagnosed at a late stage, with 80% only detected after the disease has spread and is no longer operable.
“This is reflected in its poor survival rate – more than half of people with the disease die within three months of diagnosis. Improving our fundamental understanding of what makes pancreatic cancer grow and spread so rapidly is essential if we are to make much-needed breakthroughs.
“This project gives us new information about how pancreatic cancer can suppress certain molecules to help it spread aggressively throughout the body, which in turn could lead to the development of more effective treatment options in the future.”
