Scientists have made a crucial DNA discovery that could help cure one of the deadliest cancers.
A team of researchers from the UK and US have found that pancreatic cancer is able to shut down molecules in one of the body’s most important genes, helping the disease to grow and spread rapidly.
Pancreatic cancer is the 12th most common cancer worldwide, with more than half a million people diagnosed every year. It has the worst survival rates of all the most common forms of the disease.
The deadly nature of pancreatic cancer has stumped experts for years but the breakthrough offers hope in the hunt for a treatment that could wipe out the disease.
Dr Maria Hatziapostolou, of 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 beyond five years has improved very little for some time and so it’s 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 become limited, with more than half of patients dying within three months of diagnosis. High-profile figures to die of the disease include Alan Rickman, John Hurt, Steve Jobs and Patrick Swayze.
For the study, published in the journal Gastro Hep Advances, the researchers analysed healthy as well as pancreatic cancer tissue samples. They found pancreatic cancers triggered a process known as DNA methylation, causing molecules in the normally beneficial HNF4A gene to switch off, allowing tumours to grow extremely quickly.
The HNF4A gene is crucial to human health because it helps many of the body’s organs to function properly. But the researchers discovered pancreatic cancer can covertly 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 centre, 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 kinder and more effective treatment options for pancreatic cancer. The majority of pancreatic cancers are diagnosed at a late stage, with 80% not being detected until after the disease has spread and is no longer operable.
“This is reflected in its poor survival rate – over 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 vital if we are to make much-needed breakthroughs.
“This project gives us new information on how pancreatic cancer is able to suppress certain molecules to help it spread aggressively around the body which, in turn, could lead to the development of more effective treatment options in the future.”
