Scientists has discovered a molecular switch that can reverse cancer by turning cancer cells into healthy ones. The revelation, made by researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), in Daejeon, South Korea, could lead to new treatments for this disease.
“We have discovered a molecular switch that can reverse the fate of cancer cells to a normal state,” said the paper’s author and biologist professor, Kwang-Hyun Cho, in a statement.
They achieved cancer reversal, he explained, “by capturing the critical transition moment just before normal cells move into an irreversible cancerous state.”
A critical transition, the researchers explain, occurs when a radical change of state occurs at a certain time. A recognizable case, for example, is when water is transformed into steam at 100 ºC when boiled in a teapot.
Another critical transition also occurs at a specific point in time in the process by which normal cells transform into cancer cells as a result of an accumulation of genetic and epigenetic changes.
HOW CANCER IS REVERSED
In their study, Cho and his colleagues found that at the height of this transformation, during tumor development or “tumorigenesis,” normal cells enter an unstable state in which normal and cancerous cells coexist.
Investigating this critical transition using a systems biology approach, the team created a process to infer a model of the genetic network that controls cancer development and then uses it to find a molecular switch that can reverse the process.
The team tested their system with an assay on colon cancer cells, and through further experiments showed that cancer cells could regain the characteristics of normal cells.
“This study has revealed in detail, at the level of the genetic network, what changes occur within the cells behind the cancer development process, something that until now was considered a mystery,” Cho added.
He concluded: “This is the first study to reveal that an important clue that may reverse the fate of tumorigenesis is hidden in this very moment of change.”
The researchers anticipate that the technology will be applied to create treatments to reverse other forms of cancer in the future.
Published in Newsweek / Translated by Radio Angulo
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