Melbourne researchers find melanomas are addicted to sugar

Source: ABC.net.au, April 2014

CHRIS UHLMANN: Melbourne cancer researchers have made an important discovery they think may improve the treatment of Australia’s national cancer – melanoma.

They’ve found melanomas are addicted to sugar and that starving them of their glucose hit can help kill off deadly cells.

Samantha Donovan reports.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Forty per cent of all cases of melanoma are driven by a mutation in what’s called the BRAF gene.

For several years researchers at Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre had noticed that those melanomas use more glucose than normal cells.

And when they were treated with drugs known as BRAF inhibitors they stopped feeding on glucose.

Professor Rod Hicks says PhD student, Tiffany Parmenter made the connection.

ROD HICKS: In the past we didn’t understand why or how that happened or what it meant to the survival of cancer cells and Tiffany’s work has enabled us to understand that at a molecular level.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The researchers hope their discovery about the relationship between glucose and melanoma will lead to the development of other drugs that will help the existing treatments work more effectively.

Professor Rod Hicks.

ROD HICKS: The BRAF inhibitors block the uptake and use of glucose by cells but that doesn’t necessarily kill the cell. It can go into a state of starvation where it will use other fuels to survive but not grow.

This discovery identifies that if we can further prevent the use of glucose or turning on the glucose use again, that we can enhance the likelihood of controlling melanoma. We think this is a new lead in trying to overcome the resistance that occurs in these BRAF inhibitor resistant melanomas.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: How significant a breakthrough then is this for the treatment of melanoma?

ROD HICKS: It’s a very exciting time in the treatment of melanoma. If we went back five years or so, anyone with metastatic melanoma, advanced melanoma, really it was a death sentence with very few effective therapies.

With the advent of drugs like vemurafenib and a whole range of other related drugs, we’re getting excellent results in melanoma and this research gives us a new clue to try and overcome the resistance of these cells to these targeted therapies.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The research is being published today in the American journal, Cancer Discovery.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Samantha Donovan.