In the case of cancer, individual tumor cells often detach, emigrate and form metastases elsewhere. After a gene responsible for this was identified, a research team went in search of active ingredients that could inhibit the gene and found what they were looking for in statins.
When a gene called the “metastasis-associated in colon cancer 1 gene” (MACC1) becomes active in cancer cells, the cells make their way through the body, colonizing elsewhere and forming the dreaded metastases. “Many types of cancer only spread in patients with high MACC1 expression,” explained Ulrike Stein from the Experimental and Clinical Research Center, a joint research facility of the Charité and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine. A research team has therefore started looking for active substances that inhibit the activation of the MACC1 gene.
It was found that seven different cholesterol-lowering drugs inhibit the gene in tumor cells to different extents. The team tested the active ingredients with impressive success on mice in which the MACC-1 gene is overactive: the animals hardly developed any tumors or metastases as a result of the treatment. “What’s particularly remarkable is that this continued to work in the animals even after we reduced the dose relative to the amount that humans normally take,” Stein said.
An analysis of the data from 300,000 patients also points to this effect: people who took statins developed cancer much less frequently. Nevertheless, the researchers, whose results have been published in the journal Clinical and Translational Medicine, warn against taking statins prophylactically because they can have side effects. “We are still at the very beginning. Cell lines and mice are not human, we cannot readily extrapolate the results,” Stein emphasized.
Which: DOI doi.org/10.1002/ctm2.726