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Washington, April 6 (ANI): Scientists have discovered a protein that alters nutrition of breast cancer cells, which can be a potential therapeutic target in the development of effective therapies for the disease.

They have revealed that the lack or loss of a protein in the cells known as SIRT3, induces the proliferation of breast cancer.

The research was led by Dra. Marcia Haigis of the Harvard Medical School, with the participation of Arkaitz Carracedo, from the Proteomics Laboratory at CIC bioGUNE.

One 100 years ago, a researcher named Otto Warburg observed that cancerous cells feed in a singular manner: instead of using nutrients to produce energy, it seems they waste part of the food through a less efficient metabolism.

Warburg maintained the hypothesis that cancer cells have an “aberrant”, i.e. different metabolism; which he attributed to a technical defect in these cells.

They did not use food to generate energy (ATP) but to generate biomass and build more cells, divide, proliferate, etc.

“In recent years, we have come to understand this phenomenon better. Paradoxically, the cancer cells obtain sufficient energy from nutrients - equivalent to the electricity for supplying all the appliances in our house - while what is limiting for them is material to build more cells or what we can imagine as the bricks to build more houses, said Carracedo.

“To this end, they modify their metabolism in order to create more of these building blocks (cell membrane, ADN, proteins, and so on). This change in the metabolic behaviour of the tumour cell is known as the Warburg Effect, in honour of the researcher,” he said.

With this precedent, it is clear that if the way the metabolism of tumour cells is reprogrammed can be understood, more powerful and specific therapies can be designed. This was the target of this research.

Haigis’s team focused their research on new proteins that regulate the metabolism of the cells and known as Sirtuins, and detected that if a protein of this family of Sirtuins (known as SIRT3) were eliminated from the cells, these modified their mode of feeding on and processing of nutrients, showing a remarkable similarity with a cancerous cell.

“We discovered that a loss of SIRT3 triggered the Warburg Effect. SIRT3 acts as a ‘guardian’ in the cell, ensuring that the metabolic processes function correctly. Nevertheless, with loss of SIRT3, another very important protein for the cell, known as HIF1a and which has to be strictly controlled, goes out of control and alters the metabolism”, stated Carracedo.

According to this hypothesis, a cancerous cell will benefit from the elimination of SIRT3 protein.

The study was published in the Cancer Cell journal in March. (ANI)