A newly identified protein may eventually let chemotherapy hit tumors harder without causing as much damage to healthy cells.<\/p>\n
The finding is still early, but researchers say it points to a potential path for reducing some of cancer treatment’s most serious side effects.<\/p>\n
What’s happening?<\/p>\n
According to Mirage News<\/a>, researchers at the University of Sheffield and UT Southwestern Medical Center examined TOP2 poisons, a category of chemotherapy drugs used against fast-dividing cancer cells.<\/p>\n These drugs interfere with enzymes that cells need in order to keep dividing, causing major DNA damage that ultimately kills them.<\/p>\n That effect is not limited to tumors. Non-dividing healthy cells, including neurons in the brain and cardiomyocytes in the heart, also use these enzymes, which puts them at risk of injury.<\/p>\n In the study<\/a>, published in Molecular Cell, the researchers identified the stress-response protein HSF1 as a selective factor that seems to influence TOP2B but not TOP2A.<\/p>\n Because rapidly dividing cancer cells use both enzyme forms, while some healthy cells depend mostly on TOP2B, this difference could suggest a safer way to use the treatment.<\/p>\n Using atomic force microscopy, the team directly observed the proteins interacting with DNA.<\/p>\n Dr. Thomas Catley, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sheffield’s School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering, said: “It is incredible to be able to see how these proteins cling to DNA with nanometre precision.”<\/p>\n Why does it matter?<\/p>\n More effective cancer treatment with fewer lasting tradeoffs could reduce damage to the heart, brain, and other healthy tissue, which can affect quality of life after treatment ends.<\/p>\n The finding raises the possibility of reducing treatment-related harm, especially in cells the body cannot easily replace. If researchers can better separate cancer-killing effects from healthy-cell toxicity, it could improve both survival and recovery.<\/p>\n This was an in vitro study using cells extracted from mice, not a human clinical trial. That means the results are promising, but patients should not expect immediate changes to chemotherapy protocols.<\/p>\n The research reflects a broader shift in medicine toward more precise therapies that cause less collateral damage.<\/p>\n What’s being done?<\/p>\n The researchers plan to next determine whether combining TOP2 chemotherapy with HSF1 inhibition can protect healthy tissue without weakening the drugs’ anti-cancer effect.<\/p>\n In lab experiments, adding an HSF1 inhibitor greatly reduced toxicity in healthy, non-dividing cells while preserving the treatment’s ability to attack tumors.<\/p>\n Ram Madabhushi, associate professor at UT Southwestern who led the research, said the finding suggests cells “preferentially regulate TOP2B over TOP2A in this manner.”<\/p>\n The work remains a research pathway rather than a finished therapy. Scientists still need animal data and, eventually, human trials to determine whether the strategy is both safe and effective.<\/p>\n “From this, we hope to discover new ways of treating cancer effectively,” Catley said.<\/p>\n Madabhushi added, “We are currently testing whether combination therapy with HSF1 inhibitors can protect mice from the secondary toxicity of chemotherapy with TOP2 poisons.”<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A newly identified protein may eventually let chemotherapy hit tumors harder without causing as much damage to healthy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,47757,16778,16780,26711,10445,128,148718,306211],"class_list":["post-766113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cancer-cells","tag-cancer-treatment","tag-chemotherapy","tag-dna-damage","tag-researchers","tag-science","tag-university-of-sheffield","tag-ut-southwestern-medical-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}