Cancerous tumors are one of the leading causes of death on the planet. Nearly one in six deaths are caused by cancer, and in 2020, there were nearly 10 million cancer-related deaths across the globe.
Cancer-related deaths and the number of new cancer cases are expected to rise to 16.4 million and 29.5 million respectively by 2040. Consequently, researchers have been working tirelessly for decades to understand the biological mechanisms behind tumors and come up with a cure for cancer.
A recent study published by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine has revealed a crucial detail about how tumors metastasize and spread from their point of origin to other tissues. Published in “Nature Metabolism,” the research revealed that cancer cells have the ability to influence the production of methylmalonic acid (MMA), an acid that can cause aggressive metastasis as well as drug resistance in tumor cells.
This acid is usually produced as a byproduct of the digestion of fat and proteins. Older people tend to have elevated levels of MMA in their blood, which could be one reason why we are more likely to develop cancer as we grow older.
According to the research from Weill Cornell Medicine, tumor cells can disrupt the metabolic pathway involved in the digestion of fats and proteins, leading to elevated levels of MMA. Higher levels of this acid in the blood can encourage the spread of tumor cells (metastasis), and these findings provide an important peek at how tumors grow and spread to other tissues. Furthermore, this data can help researchers identify novel ways to combat the spread of tumors by targeting the processes that lead to increased methylmalonic acid in the blood.
By suppressing an enzyme that plays a key role in the digestion of protein components and certain fatty acids, tumor cells can increase the production of MMA, which then makes the cancer cells much more invasive and aggressive. This makes treatment extremely difficult as the cancerous cells can spread to different organs.
Dr. John Blenis, study coauthor and a professor of pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine, said that while there has been plenty of research on primary tumor initiation and growth, we still don’t know a lot about the transition from primary tumor to metastatic tumor. Blenis and his colleagues have spent several years studying the metabolic changes that cells go through during the transition from primary to metastatic tumor. They discovered that cancer cells can perpetuate a “feed-forward cycle” that leads to more MMA production and makes cancerous tumors more metastatic and aggressive.
Meanwhile, other efforts are ongoing by companies such as CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) to come up with novel treatments that will deliver better outcomes to the patients suffering from various cancers, especially those affecting the brain and central nervous system.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CNSP
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