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Researchers turn cancer cells into less harmful cell types

illustration breast cancer
To find new ways to treat triple-negative breast cancer, researchers have differentiated cancer cells to convert them into less harmful cells that no longer divide. (Illustration: iStock)

Cancer cells resemble stem cells in being extremely adaptable. University of Basel researchers have identified compounds that artificially mature breast cancer cells of the highly aggressive triple negative subtype and convert them to a state that resembles normal cells.

21 September 2022

illustration breast cancer
To find new ways to treat triple-negative breast cancer, researchers have differentiated cancer cells to convert them into less harmful cells that no longer divide. (Illustration: iStock)

Cancer occurs when cells grow uncontrollably and spread to other organs in the body. Cancer cells differ from normal cells in many ways. One characteristic of cancer cells is their high adaptability to different environments in the body and to drug treatments. In this characteristic, they resemble stem cells or cells in an early stage of maturation.

Researchers at the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel have tested the possibility of artificially maturing (or more precisely, differentiating) breast cancer cells as an approach to turn them into a more normal type of cell.

Differentiation is a therapeutic strategy that has been successfully implemented in treating blood-borne cancers but not yet in solid tumors. In the journal Oncogene, a research group lead by Professor Mohamed Bentires-Alj now reports promising new results. The researchers were able to use differentiation to treat an especially aggressive type of carcinoma called triple negative breast cancer.

“We show here that we can convert breast cancer cells to less harmful cells that stop growing,” says Bentires-Alj who is a group leader at the Department of Biomedicine.

The dual activity of the estrogen receptor

The hormone estrogen acts as a signaling molecule in cells by binding to its cognate receptor, the estrogen receptor, thereby inducing a range of biological effects. In the normal breast, cells that express the estrogen receptor are mature specialized breast cells and do not proliferate.

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