PARIS, Mar. 1 (Benin News) –
Many people need to take statins to lower their cholesterol levels. But statins could do even more. German researchers have published a study in the scientific journal “Clinical and Translational Medicine” showing that these drugs inhibit a gene that promotes metastasis of cancer cells.
Cancer patients rarely die from the primary tumor, but from metastases, even after a successful tumor operation. This is because cancer cells sometimes spread to other parts of the body early in the disease, when the tumor is still very small and may not even have been discovered yet. To do this, they must detach from the extracellular matrix and migrate into nearby lymphatic or blood vessels which transport them to new tissues, where they attach and proliferate.
Understanding the molecular mechanisms of metastasis is therefore an essential piece of the puzzle in the fight against cancer. More than ten years ago, these researchers succeeded in discovering an important driver of this process in human colorectal cancer: the gene associated with metastasis in colon cancer 1 (MACC1).
When cancer cells express MACC1, it increases their ability to proliferate, move around the body, and invade other tissues. “Many cancers only spread in patients with high expression of MACC1,” explains one of the research leaders, Ulrike Stein.
The role of MACC1 as a key factor and biomarker of tumor growth and metastasis – not only in colorectal cancer, but in more than 20 solid tumors such as stomach, liver and breast cancer – has since been studied by many other researchers around the world and confirmed in more than 300 publications.
These researchers have now discovered what could interrupt metastatic progression in these cases: Statins, which are prescribed as cholesterol-lowering drugs, inhibit the expression of MACC1 in tumor cells.
In their search for MACC1 inhibitors, the researchers performed high-throughput drug screening with colleagues at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. Independently, they invented statins. They tested this discovery on several tumor cell lines and obtained favorable results: the seven drugs tested all reduced the expression of MACC1 in the cells, but to varying degrees.
The scientists then administered the cholesterol blockers to genetically modified mice with increased expression of MACC1. This made it possible to almost completely suppress the formation of tumors and metastases in animals. “What’s particularly remarkable is that the beneficial effects continued in the animals even after we reduced the dose from the amount humans normally ingest,” Stein says.
The researchers also looked at data from a total of 300,000 patients who were prescribed statins. This analysis revealed a correlation. “Patients taking statins had half the incidence of cancer compared to the general population,” they explain.
Stein advises against taking statins as a preventive measure without consulting a doctor and having lipid levels checked, to ensure that serious side effects do not occur. “We are still in the early stages. The cell lines and the mice are not human beings, so we cannot directly transfer the results”, emphasizes the scientist.