New Mechanism for Cell Survival in Low Sugar States May Aid Brain Cancer Treatment
An international team of researchers has uncovered a mechanism explaining how cells survive under low sugar conditions, potentially leading to new brain cancer treatments, Israel’s Ben-Gurion University announced Monday.
Living organisms, from humans to bacteria, require sugar for survival. Cells use sugar to create fat and grow, but when sugar is scarce, they stop making fat or burn out. This situation, termed glucose starvation, occurs when a cell’s sugar levels drop below a critical threshold.
Give the gift of hope
We practice what we preach:
accurate, fearless journalism. But we can't do it alone.
- On the ground in Gaza, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and more
- Our program trained more than 100 journalists
- Calling out fake news and reporting real facts
- On the ground in Gaza, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and more
- Our program trained more than 100 journalists
- Calling out fake news and reporting real facts
Join us.
Support The Media Line. Save democracy.
Cancer cells also depend on sugar for growth but often experience glucose starvation due to weaker blood flow to tumor tissues. Researchers from Israel, Germany, and Belgium investigated how cancer cells, especially brain tumor cells, manage to survive and thrive despite glucose starvation.
The study, published in Nature Communications, revealed that a protein named 4EBP plays a key role in regulating the rate at which cells produce fat based on their energy status. The researchers found that cancer cells produce higher levels of 4EBP compared to normal tissues. Human, mouse, and yeast cells with reduced levels of 4EBP could not survive glucose starvation.
They discovered that the gene encoding 4EBP is particularly active in brain tumor cells, which must adapt to the low glucose environment of cerebrospinal fluid. By muting the expression of 4EBP in brain tumor cells and implanting them into mice brains, the researchers observed that the mice with edited cells had higher survival rates than those in the control group.
This finding suggests that targeting 4EBP could lead to new cancer treatments. Future studies aim to develop a molecule that blocks 4EBP, forcing glucose-starved tumor cells to burn out, thereby selectively targeting cancer cells without harming healthy cells.
