Concordia research holds new promise in battle against cancer
Can a natural acid produced by our bodies be used to treat cancer patients? Could a new delivery system for medications minimize the harmful side effects of cancer treatments?
Scientists at Concordia University are moving closer to answering these types of questions, with discoveries that are breaking new ground in cancer research. Their work could help decode some of the persistent mysteries around a disease that afflicts more than 200,000 Canadians each year.
A Concordia biology professor and his team have found that a common bile acid found in the liver kills breast and prostate cancer cells, without harming non-cancerous cells. The findings on bile acid came to light while Prof. Vladimir Titorenko was conducting experiments with yeast. He and his colleagues are exploring how to delay the process of aging and, by association, impede the onset of degenerative diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
Titorenko’s team uses yeast in its laboratory experiments, because yeast cells have biological processes that are very similar to those that occur within human cells. Another benefit is that yeast ages very quickly, allowing the effects of different tests to be seen within a few weeks. In the course of their experiments, they came to uncover the power of lithocholic acid, a bile acid found in the liver.
“In addition to being able to delay aging in yeast, lithocholic acid can kill human cancer cells cultured in a Petri dish, without harming non-cancerous cells,” Titorenko explained, summarizing his team’s research findings published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. “The human cancer cells that can be killed by lithocholic acid include neuroblastoma, prostate, and breast cancer cells.”
Once this discovery was made, he and research partners in Montreal and Saskatoon continued their work to better understand the processes behind their findings. They concluded that lithocholic acid is attracted to the large number of receptors on the surface of cancer cells. Receptors are essentially a protein sticking outside of the cell that can bind with different chemical molecules. When the bile acid connects with the cancer cell receptors, it is the beginning of the end for the cancer cell.
“The surface of cancer cells is different from that of normal cells,” Titorenko said. “Lithocholic acid goes to those cells that have more receptors and it sends a signal or directive to the cancer cell: ‘Kill yourself!’”
Titorenko and his team have advanced from experiments in a Petri dish to the next stage of tests. He has partnered with a provincial research centre, to study whether lithocholic acid can delay the development of prostate cancer in mice.
In another lab on the Concordia campus, Kamal Bawa is working under the supervision of Dr. John Oh to tackle a separate, and equally promising project. Bawa, a PhD candidate in the department of chemistry and biochemistry, is part of a team looking at new ways to carry anti-cancer drugs directly into a tumour or cancer cell. By doing so, it would protect healthy tissues from the effects of toxic anticancer treatments.
“It is often the side effects of cancer treatments that makes people lose their willpower,” Bawa said. “Some of the side effects of tumour therapy include hair loss and reduced immune function. It can make patients more prone to other diseases.”
The cancer drugs, she explained, cannot recognize the difference between normal and cancer tissues. Her team’s experiments focus on how to use nanocarriers — effectively tiny transport or delivery systems — to guide medications directly into the cancer cell.
“If we encapsulate these drugs in the polymer-based nanocarriers, they go and attack the tumour tissues rather than the normal tissues,” she explained. “We are essentially protecting the body from the drug, and the drug from the body.”
This year Bawa, who travelled from India to study at Concordia, was recognized with an international tuition waiver scholarship valued at $35,000. She hopes to stay in Montreal and continue her research.
While both of these projects are years away from human trials, they have the potential to bring about new understandings of cancer for future generations. The discoveries made today with Petri dishes and microscopes lay the groundwork for new and more effective medical treatments in the decades to come.
For more information, visit concordia.ca/artsci/biology and concordia.ca/artsci/chemistry.