Newest way to kill cancer cells? Old age

Scientists discover how to force cells to grow old and die

Instead of killing cancer cells with toxic drugs, scientists have discovered a molecular pathway that forces them to grow old and die, said on Wednesday.

Cancer cells spread and because they can divide indefinitely, without going through the normal aging process known as senescence.

But a study in mice showed that blocking a gene in this road called Skp2 triggered the aging process, causing cancer cells to stop dividing and stop tumor growth.
The finding may offer a new strategy against cancer, Pier Paolo Pandolfi, Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues reported in the journal Nature.

For the study, the researchers used mice genetically engineered to develop a form of prostate cancer.

In some of these, which inactivates the Skp2 gene. When the mice reached six months old, they found those with inactive Skp2 gene had developed tumors are considerably lower.
When they analyzed the tissues of the lymph nodes and prostate, they found many cells had begun to age, and also found a slow rate of cell division.

This was not the case of mice with normal Skp2 function.

They have a similar effect when using a drug blocking Skp2 in laboratory cultures of human cells of prostate cancer.

The team said that this pathway aging appears to be related to cancer, and not to other cells, suggesting that it might be useful in preventing and treating cancer.

Inactivation of this gene with drugs may work "toward a" pro-aging "therapy for the prevention and treatment of cancer," Pandolfi and his colleagues wrote.