Scientists turn colon cancer cells into near-normal cells
A KAIST team managed to "reverse" cancer in the lab without killing the cells.
Instead of destroying tumor cells, a Korean team got colon cancer to "step back" into a state resembling healthy cells.
Kwang-Hyun Cho's team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) started from an observation: when cells become cancerous, they regress along their maturation path. Using single-cell data from the human large intestine, they built a "digital twin" of the gene network that guides this process, a mathematical model that can be simulated.
With their tool, called BENEIN, they searched for the master switches that prevent cells from maturing into enterocytes, the normal cells of the intestine. They found three genes: MYB, HDAC2 and FOXA2. Switching them off together in three colon cancer lines reduced proliferation far more than switching them off separately, and the cells took on a genetic profile similar to normal tissue.
The effect was also seen in mice with implanted tumors, whose volume and weight decreased. The idea of reverting cancer rather than killing it could avoid side effects, although it has not yet been tested in people.
The work is signed by Jeong-Ryeol Gong, Chun-Kyung Lee, Hoon-Min Kim, Juhee Kim and Jaeog Jeon, and was published online on December 11, 2024.
Key facts
- Key genes: MYB, HDAC2 and FOXA2.
- It worked in three cell lines: HCT-116, CACO-2 and HT-29.
- Compared with data from more than 400 colon cancer patients.
- Published in Advanced Science in December 2024.
The authors believe the method could apply to other cancers; clinical trials are still needed.
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