statin, inhibiting cancer cell metastasis

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-common-cholesterol-drugs-breast-cancer.html

A new study from the University of Notre Dame shows drugs used to treat high cholesterol could interfere with the way breast cancer cells adapt to the microenvironment in the brain, preventing the cancer from taking hold. 

Statins, a group of drugs commonly prescribed for those with high cholesterol, were shown to interfere with a pathway that allows a cancer cell to recycle cell surface proteins and therefore make it easier for cancer cells to live within the brain. The protein Rab11b brings "recycled" proteins back to the surface like a fast-moving Ferris wheel, Zhang said. Statins suppress breast cancer survival in the brain by inhibiting the ability of Rab11b to recycle surface proteins. As a result of less recycling, the surface of metastatic tumor cells is less sticky. This limits the survival of cancer cells, and ultimately slows the rate of tumor colonization in the brain microenvironment.

Zhang's lab seeks uses of already-FDA-approved drugs to target cancer metastasis because they are already known to be safe, which allows for quicker testing without waiting several years for new therapeutics to be developed and tested.

 

얼마전에 statin이 microbiome에 좋은 역할을 한다고 했던 것이 nature였나 science에 나온 것 같은데, breast cancer에도 좋다고 한다. protein recycling을 하게 도와주는 Rab11b가 저지되어 효력이 약화된다고 한다.

 

reference

Erin N. Howe et al. Rab11b-mediated integrin recycling promotes brain metastatic adaptation and outgrowth, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16832-2