Healthy breast cells help kill cancer cells
Baku, April 15 (AZERTAC). Healthy epithelial cells in breast tissue secrete an anticancer protein called interleukin 25 (IL25) that instructs malignant cells to self-destruct, leaving healthy cells intact, according to new research from the US published online this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The researchers hope their discovery provides a new target for drug development.
IL25 is already known for its role in the immune system`s response to inflammation.
Lead researcher and corresponding author, Dr Mina Bissell, a breast cancer authority at the US Department of Energy`s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) in California, told the media that:
"We found that normal breast cells provide an innate defense mechanism against cancer by producing interleukin 25 (IL25) to actively and specifically kill breast cancer cells."
"This suggests that IL25 receptor signaling may provide a new therapeutic target for the treatment of breast cancer," she added.
The researchers wrote in their background information that we already know that as cells differentiate into tissue, the microenvironment that surrounds them must be well organized to ensure healthy growth and maintenance.
So Bissell and colleagues from the University of California, Irvine, wondered if this organization included producing substances to thwart the emergence of malignant cells in and near healthy tissue.
In their paper they describe how they identified six factors secreted by healthy "mammary epithelial cells (MECs) differentiating in three-dimensional laminin-rich gels" that have a toxic effect on breast cancer cells. Of those six, IL25 had the highest anticancer effect without affecting normal mammary epithelial cells.
Given the exposure that humans have every day to radiation and chemical damage, plus other things that can damage DNA, the rate of cancer is surprisingly low, even though it is a leading cause of premature death in the world.
It is not as though mutant cells aren`t being generated, said lead author, Dr Saori Furuta, a molecular biologist and Berkeley Lab colleague of Bissell`s.
Our bodies produce about 1,000 genetically impaired cells every day, but our tumor-surveillance systems get rid of them, as part of the finely balanced homeostatic process. Previous studies have described a number of tumor surveillance mechanisms, including tumor suppressors, immune surveillance and rogue cell suppression by various mechanisms in the matrix that surrounds cells.
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