Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly cancers in the world. It usually spreads very fast and is hard to treat. One common type is called pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, or PDAC.
Sadly, only about 8 out of every 100 people who are diagnosed with this disease survive more than five years. This shows how serious and aggressive the disease is.
Scientists have been working for years to find better ways to treat this kind of cancer. Now, researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in the UK have made an important discovery that could lead to new treatments.
Their study was recently published in a journal called Nature Cell Biology. The research was led by Axel Behrens and focuses on a special kind of cancer cell called cancer stem cells.
Cancer stem cells are different from other cancer cells. They behave like normal stem cells in our body, which can create and repair tissues. But in cancer, these cells are dangerous because they can form new tumors and turn into different types of cancer cells. This makes them very important in how the cancer grows and spreads.
The scientists found a protein called CD9 on the surface of these cancer stem cells. You can think of CD9 like a name tag that helps identify these cells.
But CD9 isn’t just a marker. It also helps the cancer grow faster and become more aggressive. In experiments with mice, the team found that when they lowered the amount of CD9, the tumors didn’t grow as much. But when they increased CD9, the tumors grew bigger and faster.
They also looked at medical records from real patients and found something similar. People with more CD9 in their cancer cells usually had worse results. This group includes about 10 out of every 100 people with PDAC. These findings suggest that CD9 plays an important role in how bad the cancer becomes.
The next question was: why does CD9 make cancer worse? The researchers discovered that CD9 helps cancer stem cells take in more of a nutrient called glutamine. Glutamine is like fuel for the cancer—it gives the cells the energy they need to grow and spread quickly. So, if the cells have more CD9, they can take in more glutamine and grow faster.
This discovery could lead to new treatments for pancreatic cancer. If scientists can find a way to block CD9 or stop it from helping the cells get glutamine, they might be able to slow down or even stop the cancer from growing. It would be like cutting off the power supply to the cancer cells.
There is still a lot of work to do before this becomes a real treatment, but this research is a hopeful step forward. It shows us a new way to fight one of the toughest cancers out there. For patients and their families, this could mean better chances of survival in the future.
If you care about cancer, please read studies that a low-carb diet could increase overall cancer risk, and vitamin D supplements could strongly reduce cancer death.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about how drinking milk affects the risks of heart disease and cancer and results showing higher intake of dairy foods linked to higher prostate cancer risk.
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