April 30, 2024

Researchers Discover a Key Weak Spot in a Deadly Childhood Cancer

” We discovered that MYCN amplification rewires a growths lipid metabolism in a manner that promotes the use and biosynthesis of fats, a type of lipid cells can use as a source of energy,” Barbieri said. “Cells with extra copies of MYCN depend extremely on fats for their survival. We verified this both in MYCN-amplified cell lines and in MYCN- amplified patient growth samples.”
Barbieri and her coworkers proposed that MYCN reroutes lipid metabolism to make fatty acids quickly available to cancer cells, motivating the development of growth cells.
Checking out the system
” When we investigated what prompted MYCN-amplified neuroblastomas to count on fatty acids to grow, we discovered that MYCN straight upregulates or improves the production of fatty acid transportation protein 2 (FATP2), a particle that mediates cellular uptake of fatty acids,” Barbieri said. “We then asked, what would happen if we interfered with FATP2 function in MYCN-amplified neuroblastomas?”
When the scientists reduced the effects of FATP2 activity, either by tearing down the gene or by blocking FATP2 action with a small-molecule inhibitor, they minimized the growth of MYCN-amplified growths.
” We observed that when we obstructed the import of fatty acids into the cancer cells, there was a reduction in growth cell development,” Barbieri stated. “The intriguing part is that blocking or preventing FATP2 had no impact on normal cells or growths without MYCN-amplification.
There are other MYCN-amplified pediatric and adult growths.
” This technique might apply to lots of human cancers that make use of MYC for oncogenesis (about 50% of cancers general) and provide brand-new insight into the regulation of energy metabolic process in cancer progression,” Barbieri stated.
These findings recommend that restorative interventions that hinder FATP2 activity can potentially selectively obstruct fat uptake in MYCN-amplified growths, stopping or reducing tumor development and making them more conscious traditional chemotherapy.
” More work is needed before this method can be used in the scientific setting,” Barbieri said. “But this study recommends that methods to disrupt a tumors dietary reliance on fatty acids is an appealing healing strategy worthy of more examination.”
Recommendation: “MYCN-driven fat uptake is a metabolic vulnerability in neuroblastoma” by Ling Tao, Mahmoud A. Mohammad, Giorgio Milazzo, Myrthala Moreno-Smith, Tajhal D. Patel, Barry Zorman, Andrew Badachhape, Blanca E. Hernandez, Amber B. Wolf, Zihua Zeng, Jennifer H. Foster, Sara Aloisi, Pavel Sumazin, Youli Zu, John Hicks, Ketan B. Ghaghada, Nagireddy Putluri, Giovanni Perini, Cristian Coarfa and Eveline Barbieri, 28 June 2022, Nature Communications.DOI: 10.1038/ s41467-022-31331-2.
The study was moneyed by the Kate Amato Foundation and the Department of Defense.

The researchers had the ability to minimize the development of MYCN-amplified growths.
A new research study identifies an Achilles heel in neuroblastoma.
15% of kids who pass away from cancer are victims of neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer that emerges from neural cells on the adrenal glands. Almost 50% of kids with high-risk neuroblastoma have extra copies of the MYCN (MYCN magnified) gene, which is the main chauffeur of neuroblastoma and its resistance to treatment.
” Treating neuroblastoma by straight targeting MYCN has been challenging,” stated Dr. Eveline Barbieri, matching author of a recent study released in Nature Communications and assistant professor of pediatrics– hematology and oncology at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Childrens Hospital. “In this research study, we examined brand-new techniques to improve the survival of children with MYCN magnified neuroblastoma by checking out metabolic vulnerabilities that we might make use of to overturn these growths resistance to treatment.”
Barbieri and her coworkers compared the metabolic profiles of MYCN-amplified neuroblastomas to the profiles of non-MYCN-amplified neuroblastomas utilizing an impartial, metabolomics analysis. Their novel methodology exposed important differences between the two growth groups in the method growth cells used certain nutrients to sustain growth advancement.

” We found that MYCN amplification rewires a tumors lipid metabolism in a method that promotes the usage and biosynthesis of fatty acids, a type of lipid cells can utilize as a source of energy,” Barbieri said. We verified this both in MYCN-amplified cell lines and in MYCN- magnified client growth samples.”
” We observed that when we blocked the import of fatty acids into the cancer cells, there was a decrease in tumor cell development,” Barbieri stated. “The fascinating part is that hindering or blocking FATP2 had no impact on regular cells or growths without MYCN-amplification. This seems to be a selective metabolic vulnerability of MYCN-amplified growths.