2023-08-10 17:04:58
Updated Thursday, August 10, 2023 – 17:04
A Spanish investigation shows good results of ranolazine against this skin cancer in a study with animal models. The drug improves the effectiveness of current therapies
NK cells (in green) act against tumor cells (in blue). NAVARROBIOMED
The blue water, a drug that is commonly used to treat patients with stable angina pectoris, could also be useful against melanoma. This is indicated by a new study carried out by Spanish researchers from the Navarrabiomed Biomedical Research Center, the IRB of Barcelona and the Institute of Neurosciences CSIC-UMH of Alicante.
According to their data, obtained in studies in animal models, the drug improves the efficacy of therapies currently used in the treatment of melanoma, the most aggressive type of skin cancer. Details of his work are published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Metabolism.
“One of the problems we currently face with melanoma is that it develops resistance to treatments,” he explains. Salvador Aznar-BenitahICREA researcher, head of the Stem Cells and Cancer and Systemic Metabolic Alterations in Cancer laboratories at the IRB in Barcelona and one of the main authors of the research.
“Most patients respond well initially to therapies directed against BRAF,” a key mutation for the progression of the tumor that is present in approximately 50% of those affected. But after a few months, the tumor develops resistance and they are no longer effective”, points out the researcher. These patients also respond worse to another of the tools against cancer that is used in the case of melanoma, immunotherapy.
The researchers, at first, verified that the resistance of the tumor corresponds to a change in its metabolism of fats. They saw that, when being ‘encircled’, cancer begins to use fat burning as a survival mechanism, in order to continue growing.
So, they wondered if using a drug that blocks the use of fatty acids by cells could be useful to stop this escape route from cancer. And they reviewed the options already available on the market for that purpose.
“Although it is not its key function, ranolazine’s ability to block the use of fatty acids by cells had been described. It is a drug already approved for use in patients, so we decided to study it,” he says. Imanol Aroza’shead of the Navarrabiomed Cancer Signaling Unit and coordinator of the work.
Function. In animal studies, the action of ranolazine was capable of slowing down tumor progression and, more importantly, it made the cancer susceptible to the action of immunotherapy.
“The treatment manages, explaining it in a simple way, to make the tumor cells more visible to the immune system”exemplifies Arozarena.
In research, the combination of ranolazine along with a type of immunotherapy (anti-PD-L1 antibodies) achieved very significant improvements both in the response to treatment and in the survival of the treated animals.
In the conclusions of the work, the scientists point out that their data show that ranolazine could be useful for making resistant tumors sensitive to immunotherapy, although they recall that human trials must be carried out to confirm this relationship.
In addition to starting this path, the scientists also want to explore the usefulness of the drug in other types of cancers that also use fat metabolism as a source of energy, as well as advance the knowledge of how this drug works in tumor cells and the immune system.
“Immunotherapy has established itself as a fundamental therapeutic strategy in melanoma and other types of cancer. Despite this, many patients do not respond optimally to these treatments. This work shows the beneficial impact of the combination of ranolazine with immunotherapy in models preclinical studies of melanoma, which supports its possible application in patients”, highlighted Berta Sánchez-Laorden, principal investigator of the Cellular Plasticity in Development and Disease group at the Institute of Neurosciences CSIC-Universidad Miguel Hernández, who has also participated in the study. research.
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