Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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Warburg effect

Targeting metastasis through metabolism

Research from Adam Marcus’ and Mala Shanmugam’s labs was published Tuesday in Nature Communications – months after we wrote an article for Winship Cancer Institute’s magazine about it. So here it is again!

At your last visit to the dentist, you may have been given a mouth rinse with the antiseptic chlorhexidine. Available over the counter, chlorhexidine is also washed over the skin to prepare someone for surgery. Winship researchers are now looking at chlorhexidine and its chemical relative alexidine for another purpose: stopping cancer metastasis.

While the researchers don’t envision using chlorhexidine mouthwash as an anti-cancer measure directly, their findings suggest ways to combine other drugs, already in clinical trials, in ways that could deplete the cells needed for metastasis.

When used as an antiseptic, chlorhexidine is basically a detergent that blasts bacteria apart, scientists think. As leads for potential anti-cancer agents, chlorhexidine and its relatives appear to have a different effect. They interfere with mitochondria, the miniature power plants in our cells. Cancer cells trying to metastasize and invade other tissues seem to need their mitochondria more—especially the cells that are leading the way. Read more

Posted on March 24, 2020 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer Leave a comment

Nox-ious link to cancer Warburg effect

At Emory, Kathy Griendling’s group is well known for studying NADPH oxidases (also known as Nox), enzymes which generate reactive oxygen species. In 2009, they published a paper on a regulator of Nox enzymes called Poldip2. Griendling’s former postdoc, now assistant professor, Alejandra San Martin has taken up Poldip2.

Griendling first came to Nox enzymes from a cardiology/vascular biology perspective, but they have links to cancer. Nox enzymes are multifarious and it appears that Poldip2 is too. As its full name suggests, Poldip2 (polymerase delta interacting protein 2) was first identified as interacting with DNA replication enzymes.  Poldip2 also appears in mitochondria, indirectly regulating the process of lipoylation — attachment of a fatty acid to proteins anchoring them in membranes. That’s where a recent PNAS paper from San Martin, Griendling and colleagues comes in. It identifies Poldip2 as playing a role in hypoxia and cancer cell metabolic adaptation.

Part of the PNAS paper focuses on Poldip2 in triple-negative breast cancer, more difficult to treat. In TNBC cells, Poldip2’s absence appears to be part of the warped cancer cell metabolism known as the Warburg effect. Lab Land has explored the Warburg effect with Winship’s Jing Chen.

Posted on February 15, 2018 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer, Heart Leave a comment

A sickly sweet anticancer drug

Cancer cells are well known for liking the simple sugar glucose. Their elevated appetite for glucose is part of the Warburg effect, a metabolic distortion that has them sprinting all the time (glycolysis) despite the presence of oxygen.

A collaboration between researchers at Winship Cancer Institute, Georgia State and University of Mississippi has identified a potential drug that uses cancer cells’ metabolic preferences against them: it encourages the cells to consume so much glucose it makes them sick.

Their findings were published in Oncotarget. Read more

Posted on December 20, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer Leave a comment

Melanoma mutation likes fat for fuel

Cancer cells love glucose, the simple sugar the body uses for energy, so a high-fat, low-carb diet should starve them, right?

Where does this idea come from? Most cancer cells display enhanced glucose uptake, a phenomenon known as the Warburg effect, after 1931 Nobel Prize winner Otto Warburg.

Resurgent interest in exploiting the Warburg effect was described by Sam Apple in NYT Magazine and by Bret Stetka for NPR. High-fat, low-carb “ketogenic” diets are known to be effective against some types of epilepsy, and have also been explored by endurance athletes. Ketogenic diets have been tried as a clinical countermeasure against cancer in a limited way, mainly in brain cancer.

Before everybody gets too excited, let’s think about how particular cancer-driving mutations affect cell metabolism, suggests Winship Cancer Institute researcher Jing Chen. His team’s work in mice suggests that cancers with a common melanoma mutation (BRAF V600E) will grow faster in response to a ketogenic diet. In addition, the Winship researchers found that lipid-lowering agents such as statins curb these cancers’ growth, even in the context of a more normal diet.

The results were published on January 12 in Cell Metabolism.

Caveats: the findings cover just one mutation and need to be tested clinically.

Consumers and cancer patients already get a lot of advice about the right diet to fight cancer, but this research points toward an intriguing concept:  a “precision diet,” tailored to an individual patient’s cancer.  Read more

Posted on January 13, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer Leave a comment

Nutty stimulant revealed as anticancer tool

Arecoline — the stimulant component of areca nuts — has anticancer properties, researchers at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have discovered. The findings were published Thursday, November 17 in Molecular Cell.

areca-nut-and-arecoline

Areca nut and chemical structure of arecoline. From Wikimedia.

Areca nuts are chewed for their stimulant effects in many Asian countries, and evidence links the practice to the development of oral and esophageal cancer. Analogous to nicotine, arecoline was identified as an inhibitor of the enzyme ACAT1, which contributes to the metabolism-distorting Warburg effect in cancer cells.

Observers of health news have complained that coffee, as a widely cited example, is implicated in causing cancer one week and absolved the next. Arecoline is not another instance of the same trend, stresses senior author Jing Chen, PhD, professor of hematology and medical oncology at Emory University School of Medicine and Winship Cancer Institute.

“This is just a proof of principle, showing that ACAT1 is a good anticancer target,” Chen says. “We view arecoline as a lead to other compounds that could be more potent and selective.”

Chen says that arecoline could be compared to arsenic, a form of which is used as a treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia, but is also linked to several types of cancer. Plus, arecoline’s cancer-promoting effects may be limited if it is not delivered or absorbed orally, he says. When arecoline first arose in a chemical screen, Chen says: “It sounded like a carcinogen to me. But it all depends on the dose and how it is taken into the body.” Read more

Posted on November 17, 2016 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer Leave a comment

Orange lichens are source for potential anticancer drug

An orange pigment found in lichens and rhubarb called parietin may have potential as an anti-cancer drug, scientists at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have discovered.

The results were published in Nature Cell Biology on October 19.

Caloplaca_Fenwick

Parietin, shown to have anticancer activity in the laboratory, is a dominant pigment in Caloplaca lichens. Note: this study did not assess the effects of eating lichens or rhubarb. Photo courtesy of www.aphotofungi.com

Parietin, also known as physcion, could slow the growth of and kill human leukemia cells obtained directly from patients, without obvious toxicity to human blood cells, the authors report. The pigment could also inhibit the growth of human cancer cell lines, derived from lung and head and neck tumors, when grafted into mice.

A team of researchers led by Jing Chen, PhD, discovered the properties of parietin because they were looking for inhibitors for the metabolic enzyme 6PGD (6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase). 6PGD is part of the pentose phosphate pathway, which supplies cellular building blocks for rapid growth. Researchers have already found 6PGD enzyme activity increased in several types of cancer cells.

“This is part of the Warburg effect, the distortion of cancer cells’ metabolism,” says Chen, professor of hematology and medical oncology at Emory University School of Medicine and Winship Cancer Institute. “We found that 6PGD is an important metabolic branch point in several types of cancer cells.” Read more

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer Leave a comment

Potential anticancer drugs from humble sources

Jing Chen and colleagues at Winship Cancer Institute recently published a paper in Molecular Cell. Most of the paper deals with a metabolic enzyme, 6PGD (6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase), and how it is more active in cancer cells.

Rhubarb_Flower

Rheum palmatum/Chinese rhubarb/da-huang

Tucked in at the end is a note that an inhibitor of 6GPD with an odd name, physcion, has anticancer activity in Chen’s team’s hands. Physcion, also known as parietin, is an orange-yellow pigment extractable from lichens and Chinese rhubarb that has been employed as an anti-mildew agent.

Probing cancer cells’ warped metabolism is a promising approach, for both drug discovery and finding effective ways to combine existing drugs, because of the Warburg effect: cancer cells’ tendency to suck up lots of sugar and use it in energy-inefficient ways. Read more

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer 1 Comment