癌细胞的脆弱性 z-bo 2020-10-23 311

　　One of the biggest challenges in developing cancer drugs is the diversity of cancer types. Cancers originate from a variety of cells and tissues. Each cancer has its own characteristics, performance, and sensitivity to anticancer drugs. For example, treatments effective for colon cancer may have little effect on lung cancer.

　　Therefore, in order to create an effective treatment for cancer, scientists are working to find the causes of cell mutations. In a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers at the California Institute of Technology showed that the framework they developed using special microscopy technology allows them to explore the metabolic processes inside cancer cells.

　　This work was carried out by researchers in Lu Wei's laboratory, assistant professor of chemistry, and researchers from the Institute of Systems Biology in Seattle and UCLA. It combines a technique called Raman spectroscopy and its improved version, the stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscope. Raman spectroscopy uses the natural vibrations that occur in the bonds between the atoms that make up a molecule. In this method, the molecules are first bombarded by the laser. When the photons of the laser bounce off the molecules, they gain or lose energy due to the interaction with the vibrations in the molecular bonds. Because each bond in a molecule affects a photon in a unique and predictable way, the structure of the molecule can be inferred from the "appearance" of the photon rebounding from it. By mapping the distribution of target chemical bonds, SRS microscopes can provide images of these molecular structures.

　　Wei and her colleagues used these combined techniques to examine the metabolites present in five melanoma cell lines commonly used in the study. The melanoma cells were chosen because they have a wide range of metabolic characteristics that can be studied.

　　By studying the metabolites of cells, researchers can begin to infer how their metabolism works and how they are targeted by drugs. This is similar to how a saboteur might gather information about machinery in a factory to plan the location that might cause the most damage.

　　"The question we are interested in is why all cancer cells we observe have completely different behaviors," "Because certain cells are more dependent on certain metabolic pathways, they are more likely to destroy these pathways."

　　The research team discovered some new metabolic sensitivity in cancer cells, including monounsaturated fatty acid synthesis, but the main purpose of the current research is to conduct basic scientific research.

　　James R. Heath of the Seattle Institute for Systems Biology said that this new technology allows researchers to understand the inside of cancer cells in more detail than ever before. "The chemical imaging method developed in the laboratory allows us to identify the drug metabolism sensitivity in some very aggressive cancer models. It is easy to overlook these metabolic weaknesses in any other analytical method."