An American study revealed that cancer cells cooperate between them to face the challenges of nutrient deficiency in order to survive.
A research team from New York University discovered that in cases of food deficiency, cancer cells cooperate by secreting a type of enzyme, named CNDP2 as it breaks the protein substances into amino acids shared by these cells.
The researchers emphasized that this discovery allows the way to create new means of treating tumors by preventing the work of this enzyme or getting rid of its genetic code in order to slow the growth of tumors inside the body.
“We have discovered cooperative interactions between the cancer cells that allow them to survive and spread,” says researcher Carlos Carrona Fontaine of the University of New Yok.
Scientists had previously believed that cancer cells compete for nutrients and other resources within the body, and that the tumors increase fierce over time because the strongest cells are the ones that dominate the body’s resources. However, the researchers concluded that living cells generally cooperate between them in difficult circumstances.
Within the framework of the study published by the scientific journal Nature, the researchers examined the development of the growth of different types of tumors using a robot microscope and a specialized program for analyzing images by conducting the census of millions of cancerous cells under hundreds of different circumstances, which allowed researchers to study the rates of density of cancerous gatherings while adjusting the percentage of nutrients available each time.
The researcher Carlos Fontaine stated, “The surprising thing is that we have noticed that reducing amino acids is beneficial to the largest cancer gatherings, which indicates the presence of a cooperative process between cancer gatherings that contain larger numbers of cells, which indicates the existence of real cooperation between the tumors cells.”