Marie-Josée Boucher, a professor and researcher at the University of Sherbrooke Cancer Research Institute (IRCUS), has discovered a method that could be more effective in treating pancreatic cancer.
According to the University of Sherbrooke, “This greater-than-expected scientific breakthrough would make it possible to combine two therapeutic strategies, gemcitabine and TFEB, to reduce resistance to chemotherapy treatments.”
Respond well to chemotherapy treatments
For the professor and researcher, “treating pancreatic cancer cells with a standard chemotherapy drug, gemcitabine, while blocking the function of the transcription factor EB (TFEB) would be a promising strategy.” The work of Ms. Boucher and her team “made it possible to demonstrate that gemcitabine TFEB is needed to activate the function of lysosomes in pancreatic cancer cells.” However, according to a study by Marie-Josée Boucher, “the combination of these two treatments makes it possible to significantly reduce not only the growth of pancreatic cancer cells, but also their ability to develop tumors .”
“This discovery is a first step. Preclinical validation experiments will be essential. It will also be interesting to test whether targeting TFEB can also increase the response of pancreatic cancer cells to other chemotherapy drugs used in the clinic.”
– Marie-Josée Boucher, professor and researcher at IRCUS
Autophagy and lysosome function
Autophagy is a normal process that healthy cells in the body use to clean house but also to survive stress. The cell collects “its waste,” the material it no longer needs, and directs it into small bags called lysosomes. The function of lysosomes is to break down and recycle this material to provide the cell with what it needs to survive. Cancer cells use autophagy to their advantage to resist the stress caused by cancer treatments and avoid death. The final stages of autophagy require the presence of a network of functional lysosomes. TFEB plays a central role in regulating autophagy and lysosome formation. – (Source: University of Sherbrooke)
“We still widely use gemcitabine to treat pancreatic cancer. The search for a potential target that would increase the efficacy of gemcitabine is clearly of clinical interest. Despite several research protocols and numerous scientific efforts, the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer has changed little in recent years. The survival rate remains far too low. Basic research is essential.”
– Frédéric Lemay, gastroenterologist-oncologist at the CIUSSS de l'Estrie-CHUS and professor-researcher at IRCUS