Cholesterol is an important structural component of cell membranes of all animal cells, according to an online edition for girls and women aged 14 to 35. Pannochka. net Cancer cells need a lot of cholesterol to grow and multiply rapidly.

Now, researchers have found that a substance to reduce cholesterol can kill cancer cells and stop the progression of the disease in hormone-dependent breast cancer.

Employees of the University of Missouri (University of Missouri), led by Professor of Biomedical Sciences MU College of Veterinary Medicine Salman Hyder (Salman Hyder), talked about their results on the pages of the publication Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.

Professor Gayder, who also teaches tumor agniogenesis and works at the Dalton Center for Cardiac Research at MU, says that scientists have been looking for ways to treat breast cancer using molecular cell targets that control the development of cancer. He said: "In our work, we aimed at the production of cholesterol, without which cancer cells die".

The drug disrupts the synthesis of cholesterol in cells.

Researchers say that about 70% of breast tumors in women are under the influence of estrogen, that is, they are related to hormone-dependent tumors. These cancers can be treated with drugs such as tamoxifen, which exhibits anti-estrogenic effects and reduces tumors.

Although such a cancer can initially respond to anti-hormonal therapy, in many cases, the resistance (stability) of the tumor to such drugs develops, and cancer cells begin to thrive again.

Cholesterol can have a certain effect on resistance, because cells use cholesterol to synthesize hormones. This very moment was of particular interest to scientists. Perhaps they could attack hormone-dependent cancer by using cholesterol pathways for this, rather than trying to directly block the effects of estrogen.

Therefore, scientists took laboratory breast cancer cells and added to them a substance that was originally developed to reduce cholesterol in cardiac patients. The substance in question is a new inhibitor of cholesterol biosynthesis from Roche Pharmaceuticals, which differs from statins in its mechanism of action.

The drug destroys estrogen receptors.

They found that the hypocholesterolemic drug inhibits the growth of cancer cells, and in many cases even causes their death. Moreover - the drug destroys estrogen receptors, specific proteins on the surface of cells.

Demonstrating the effects of the drug on the cell culture, scientists began to experiment on mice with breast cancer. They saw that a new molecule kills cancer cells, depriving them of the necessary for the growth of estrogen receptors.

Professor Gayder summed up the results: "The new substance has anti-tumor properties both in relation to human breast cancer cells in vitro, and in relation to breast cancer cells in laboratory mice. In both cases, the proteins that are responsible for the growth of tumors are destroyed, which leads to cell death ".

The scientist says that with further clinical study and testing, they can get a drug that will fight not only with cholesterol, but also with breast cancer.

To conduct the study, scientists were awarded a grant from the Department of Breast Cancer and the National Institutes of Health.

In April 2014, Medical News Today reported on how the staff of the Center for the Study of Cancer Sidney Kimmel (Baltimore, USA) developed a blood test that predicts a relapse of breast cancer. This test shows signs of enhanced methylation of the DNA process, which weakens genes that hold cancer under control.

medbe. en.

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