Cancer is an ongoing problem and has been for so many years. Over 1.9 million new cancer cases arise, and over 600,000 deaths are recorded annually.
Chemotherapy is quite an expensive option, as depending on the drug and type of cancer it treats, the average monthly cost of chemo drugs can range from $1,000 to $12,000. To put that into better perspective, if a cancer patient requires four chemo sessions a year, it could cost them up to $48,000 total, which is beyond the average annual income.
Luckily, scientists have made some breakthroughs...
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Scientists discovered that lactate, a metabolic waste product by cells during strenuous exercise, can rejuvenate immune cells that fight cancer. The finding could be used to develop new strategies to boost cancer immunotherapies.
When scientists gave lactate and glucose injections to mice with colon cancer or melanoma, they found that tumor growth were significantly reduced in mice treated with lactate.
When they tried the same experiment in mice genetically engineered to lack T cells, this anti-tumor benefit was blocked, suggesting that lactate appeared to exert its effects through this immune cell population and alone did not eliminate the tumors.
When the researchers added a commonly used immune checkpoint inhibitor — a type of cancer immunotherapy that releases the brakes that prevent T cells from fighting malignancies, about half the mice became completely tumor-free. Lactate also significantly improved the effects of a cancer-fighting vaccine and improved the anti-cancer response of cultured T cells that were injected into tumor-bearing mice.
This proves that lactate, a natural waste product that us humans can produce by ourselves (for no cost), can help to boost immune cells that can combat terrible cancer cells.
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There was a shortage of chemotherapeutic drugs -- vinblastine and vincristine, in the summer and fall of 2019. Thus, cancer patients experienced interruptions in their treatments. Both these drugs bind to microtubular proteins in the mitotic spindle, preventing cell division during metaphase. This helps to combat cancer since cancer is uncontrolled cell division.
In a synthetic and marvelous approach, scientists engineered yeast cells to produce vinblastine. This study became the first study to demonstrate an entirely new microbial supply chain for these essential cancer drugs.
Monoterpene indole alkaloids (MIAs) are a diverse family of complex plant secondary metabolites (a substance made or used when the body breaks down food, drugs or chemicals, or its own tissue) with many medicinal properties, including the essential anti-cancer therapeutics vinblastine and vincristine.
The study showcases a very long biosynthetic pathway, including 30 enzymatic steps beyond the yeast native metabolites. In total, 56 genetic edits were performed, including expression of 34 heterologous genes from plants, as well as deletions, knock-downs and overexpression of ten yeast genes, leading to the production of catharanthine and vindoline, from which vinblastine occurs. As the vinblastine pathway is a long biosynthetic pathway, this study positions yeast as a scalable platform to produce more than 3,000 natural MIAs and a virtually infinite number of new-to-nature analogues.
This can reduce costs to other cancer treatments while also giving patients more options.
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