Scientists reveal a unlikely new weapon against cancer: fat cells

Our body fat can be a secret weapon in our eternal fight against cancer. A new study published this week suggests that fat cells can be designed in a treatment that literally starves tumors.

Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, conducted the study, published Tuesday at BiotechnologyS In a series of experiments, they found that the recurrent and implanted beige fat cells could inhibit the growth of five different cancers. The results may indicate a new but relatively easy method of dealing with cancer, the researchers say.

In our bodies, three wide types of fat cells can be found: white, brown and beige. White fat cells mostly help to store energy while brown fat cells Keep your temperature stable by burning sugar and fat when it’s cold. Beige fat cells are somewhere in the middle, capable of performing the functions of white or brown fat cells if necessary.

Study 2022 suggested The fact that brown fat cells induced by cold can reject the resources needed by cancer cells to continue to grow. Only a small percentage of fat cells, however, are brown and cold therapy required to cause this antitumor effect may not be safe to use in most cancer patients (the only case of a person detailed in the 2022 study S UCSF researchers theoretize that they can safely reproduce this same effect by turning white fat cells into beige fat cells – a transformation that scientists are now learning to perform reliably.

Researchers have used a version of the CRISPR gene editing technology to create their reprogrammed beige fat cells by engaging in a particular gene called UCP1. Cells also sometimes change to prefer nutrients that certain cancers are particularly hungry to absorb.

In various experiments using petri, mice and samples taken from real patients, researchers find that their engineering fat cells can really suppress the growth of cancer. In general, these fat cells seem to counteract at least five different types of cancer cells (colon, pancreas, prostate cancer, along with two types of breast cancer). And the cells even seemed to work when they were placed away from actual tumors.

“In summary, our results provide evidence of the principle results for a therapeutic approach to cancer called (transplantation of manipulation manipulation), which can be further developed and customized for specific cancers and patients,” the researchers wrote in their document.

The findings of the team are only the beginning. More studies will need to repeat and expand these results before we can really know if fat cells are a feasible cancer treatment. But researchers are encouraged by both the potential and the practicality of their experimental therapy. As much as we do not want to admit it, we tend to carry a lot of body fat around and doctors have long come up with how to remove and sometimes move that fat.

“We already routinely remove fat cells with liposuction and return them through plastic surgery,” says senior researcher of the study of Nadav Ahituv, director of the UCSF Human Genetics Institute, in A statement from the university. “These fat cells can be easily manipulated in the laboratory and safely placed back into the body, making them an attractive platform for cell therapy, including cancer.”

If the work of the team continues to be paid, they provide for a future in which fat cells not just cure cancer but may be programmed to do other tricks, such as monitoring blood sugar levels or sucking excess iron.