According to the scientists at Lawson Health Research Institute in London, Ontario, LKB1, a molecule that regulates the metabolism of many adult cells, is an important molecule in the cancer’s promotion and survival.
Ovarian cancer continues to be one of the most serious women’s cancers with a lack in reliable early detection tests and few treatment options. In order to find out how and why ovarian cancer cells grow and take on such lethal characteristics, Lawson’s Dr. Trevor Shepherd and his team grow the cancer cells in 3D structures, called “spheroids”. Spheroids are sticky and can attach themselves to different organs, where they can sit dormant and unnoticed for months or years before growing and becoming resistant to chemotherapy.
Recently, Dr. Shepherds’ lab discovered that the spheroids activate a ‘stress signal’, and the major molecule controlling this signal is called LKB1.
“Previous studies stated that LKB1 was a tumour suppressor in ovarian cancer, meaning that tumour cells need to get rid of LKB1 to cause cancer,” says Dr. Shepherd, “but our work is in direct conflict with these studies, because we definitively show that ovarian cancer cells still have LKB1 and that this molecule allows ovarian cancer spheroids to change their metabolism, promote tumour cell survival and make them more resistant to chemotherapy.”
According to Dr. Shepherd, currently, there are no therapies or medication that target LKB1.
“Based on these findings our lab is exploring several different strategies to understand and target LKB1 and its related molecules in ovarian cancer spheroids, and developing the essential pre-clinical models to see if this can be translated to ovarian cancer patients.”
