Scientists find way to stop breast cancer from spreading

By Elizabeth Hunter

Scientists have made a major breakthrough in treating breast cancer - by removing the building blocks that allow the killer disease to spread.

Cancer changes the metabolism of specific immune cells, resulting in them releasing a metabolite called uracil, which helps distant organs build a 'scaffold' to grow secondary tumours elsewhere in the body.

But by blocking the enzyme uridine phosphorylase-1 (UPP1) - which produces uracil - scientists stopped this 'scaffold' forming in mice and restored the immune system's ability to kill secondary cancer cells to prevent metastasis.

The research was conducted in the labs of Professor Jim Norman and Professor Karen Blyth, at the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute and the University of Glasgow.

It opens the door to new, potentially powerful new tools to tackle cancer - detecting uracil in the blood could help spot early signs of cancer spread - then blocking UPP1 with drugs could stop the spread before it starts.

Study lead Dr. Cassie Clarke, of the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute and University of Glasgow, said: “This study represents a major shift in how we think about preventing the spread of breast cancer.

“By targeting these metabolic changes as early as possible, we could stop the cancer progressing and save lives.”

The research, published in the journal Embo Reports, found there are key metabolic changes that occur in the body before the cancer spreads, offering a vital window to intervene.

Detecting these changes early could allow therapies to stop cancer cells being able to moving around the body and grow tumors elsewhere. 

Cancer Research UK’s Director of Research, Dr. Catherine Elliott, said: “Discoveries in cancer research have made huge strides in making breast cancer a far more treatable disease than ever before.

“However, metastasis - when cancer spreads - is a major factor in breast cancer becoming harder to treat, especially if the cancer returns months or even many years later.

“This discovery gives us new hope for detecting and stopping metastasis early and ensuring people have many more years with their families and loved ones.”

With around 56,800 people diagnosed with breast cancer in United Kingdom each year, and around 11,300 people sadly losing their lives to the disease each year, finding new ways to tackle it is vital.

Thanks to research, breast cancer has become a far more treatable disease, but once it spreads to other areas within the body it becomes harder to control effectively.

Understanding how and why breast cancer spreads is key to preventing the disease from becoming unmanageable with current therapies.

The team is now further investigating exactly how UPP1 changes the behaviour of immune cells, exploring the role of immune cell metabolism in early breast cancer initiation, and testing the ability of drugs that block immune cell metabolism to prevent cancer from occurring.

Simon Vincent, chief scientific officer at Breast Cancer Now, said: “This is an exciting piece of joint research that expands our understanding of how secondary breast cancer develops.

“The researchers discovered that high levels of a protein called UPP1 may make some cancers, including breast cancer, more likely to spread to other parts of the body, where the disease becomes incurable.

“In mice, targeting the UPP1 protein before secondary breast cancer developed led to fewer secondary breast tumors and a boosted immune response in the lungs.

“Now we need more research to see if this new insight can be turned into new drugs that stop secondary breast cancer, and potentially other secondary cancers, in their tracks.

"With around 61,000 people living with secondary breast cancer in the UK, research like this is vital.”