The Cancer 'Life Saver'

The breakthrough could lead to new drugs which will prevent secondary tumours developing.

Cancer is responsible for a quarter of all deaths in the UK – more than 150,000 a year.

For the first time researchers have identified a protein which can keep cancer cells anchored in one place.

The Cancer Research UK team said yesterday that their study will radically alter understanding of how tumour cells work and hopefully save many lives. And it will be particularly important for sufferers from breast cancer.

Different types of cancer have various types of proteins in them. These proteins are often responsible for dislodging cells from the tumour and causing them to spread elsewhere. Although there are already drugs to stop this happening, they often cause damage to healthy cells in the body as well as cancer cells.

Experts have been racing to find a more natural way of stopping this process from happening.

Now a team from the London Research Institute has discovered how one of the proteins, which is mainly involved in the spread of breast cancer, can be blocked.

And they hope eventually to discover how other proteins are involved in the spread of other cancers so they can develop new drugs to combat it.

Dr Michael Way, lead author of the study, said: “This is exciting because we never expected to find proteins behaving in this way.”

Although new drugs are still a long way away, this opens up a new way of thinking about how particular proteins are regulated and that will lead to other discoveries.

“Our findings represent a new way to regulate a key family of proteins that will change the way researchers see current models of cell migration – an important aspect of the spread of cancer.”

Dr Way said the scientists are looking at a protein in cancer cells called Mena which is found in excessive amounts in tumours.

This protein may affect how large tumours grow and is also involved in helping single cancer cells to “crawl” away from the tumour and towards other parts of the body.

But the team discovered that another protein called Tes could stop this happening. Tes acts against cancer by preventing cell growth and stopping tumours from forming.

In many cases, however, Mena is found in such large quantities that Tes cannot stop the disease spreading. Now researchers have discovered the mechanism by which Tes “locks on” to Mena to stop the spread of cancer.

The discovery offers the possibility of developing drugs which could block the action of Mena by mimicking the action of Tes.

The breakthrough is all the more astonishing because previous understanding of how Tes is made up did not suggest it would inhibit the protein Mena in this way.

The ground-breaking study, published today in the journal Molecular Cell, follows on from other studies which show that the protein Tes can stop tumours from forming or limit how big they are.

Eventually, scientists may be able to create a drug which mimics Tes and stops these types of cancer cells from spreading. Dr Lesley Walker, director of science information at Cancer Research UK, said last night that the latest study was an important step forward.

“Cancer cells use many complex processes when they break away from their tumour and spread to other areas of the body,” he said.

“Understanding these mechanisms and increasing our knowledge about this protein can hopefully help us to develop more effective cancer treatments in the future.”

Latest figures show that more than 38,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year.

Overall, almost 120,000 women and a similar number of men were diagnosed with all types of cancer in 2005.

Scientists are gradually developing a deeper understanding of the causes of cancer, investigating the complex interaction of chemicals, genetics, ageing and diet.

Research has been dominated recently by the discovery of new techniques that involve scouring the whole human genetic code for mutations linked to the disease.

The quest to find a cure is gathering momentum. But cancer rates are still expected to soar because of today’s unhealthy lifestyles.