Researchers trace the lineage of sarcoma return to pericytes -
Scientists at Duke Health are part of a team that discovered a type of cells surrounding blood vessels can also serve as a starting point for sarcoma, a form of cancer that occurs in the bones and connective tissues.
results, achieved through mouse studies, offer ideas that could help the development of potential new treatments for rare but devastating cancer, which has 15,000 new diagnoses each year in the US
in an article that will be published online July 14 in the journal cell reports, the international team of researchers describe the lineage tracing back from cancer to pericytes, a cell that supports blood vessels body. According to the results, genetic mutations in these cells leads to osteosarcoma and soft tissue sarcoma, and non-cancerous tumors.
"About half of all sarcomas in the United States affect people under 35," said senior author Benjamin Alman, MD, Chairman of Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University. "This cancer is difficult to treat, and for those who survive, they live with the effects for decades. With new chemotherapy and surgery, we saw the long-term survival improve to about 60 to 65 percent ., but progress has capped at recent years, we hope that by looking at the biological evolution of the tumor, we can find new ways to intervene "
Alman and others -. representing Duke and the Hospital for Sick Children and Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, Tokyo Medical and Dental University Graduate School and Faculty of Medicine and the National University Hospital in Seoul - found that cancer cells contain less a protein called beta catenin compared with pericytes which they originated. Alman said this suggests that, at some time, the beta catenin was "off" in the cell.
When the researchers activated beta-catenin in the cells using lithium, a drug already used in patients, it seems to limit the size and growth of cancers that are formed.
previous studies of beta-catenin in the sarcoma cells lacked comparing means for determining whether the levels were high or low, Alman said. By identifying the pericytes as an original cell, scientists now have baselines for comparison.
Researchers hope to use the study of lithium more beta catenin to regulate.
"Lithium was found in lung cancer treatments, so maybe we could see it used on the road to remove sarcomas," said Alman. "It is premature to make clinical trials in humans at this point. The next step is to grow more of human sarcomas in mice and treated with lithium to see if it can stop or even reduce existing tumors. "
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