Using samples of small cell lung tumours, a research team led by biologist Dr Silvia von Karstedt has discovered two new ways to induce tumour cell death. One of two subsets of tumour cells can be targeted by activating ferroptosis: iron-dependent cell death caused by oxidative stress. In the second subtype, oxidative stress – and hence cell death – can also be induced in a different way. Both types of cell death must be triggered simultaneously by drugs to kill the majority of the tumour mass. The results of the study have been published in Nature Communications.
Despite many advances in treatment, a diagnosis of small cell lung cancer means a particularly poor prognosis. In Germany, up to 8000 new cases of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) are diagnosed each year. At the time of diagnosis, cancer has already found many loopholes to escape the body’s immune system. ‘Traditional’ cell death mechanisms, such as regulated cell death by apoptosis, are usually already inactivated at this stage. That way, tumour cells can continue to divide and spread almost unperturbed.
A high cell division rate is characteristic of small cell lung cancer, which initially promises a good response to chemotherapy. ‘Unfortunately, in many cases the success of chemotherapy is short-lived because tumour cells rapidly develop resistance to therapy. In addition, a tumour consists not only of one, but of several cell types – the so-called subtypes – each of which uses unique strategies to escape lethal therapy,’ said von Karstedt, research group leader at the CECAD Cluster of Excellence for Aging Research, the Department of Translational Genomics at the University of Cologne and the Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC). This is where her research comes in. The biologist explores which cell death mechanisms are already inactivated in cancer cells and which ones can still be targeted by therapies to kill the tumour.
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Nature Communications. Study Paper:
