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Week 51/2010: Two-hand tumor stranglehold

If you browse any list of the most distinguished, quoted or awarded researchers, it will most probably contain the name of Kari Alitalo, a cancer researcher and Academy Professor, from Helsinki University Biomedical Campus, Finland. His area of particular expertise is the blood vasculature that keeps tumours alive, and lymphatic vessels which contribute to the metastatic spreading of tumours.

The most recent article of the Alitalo group, concerning the growth of blood vessels vital to tumours has just been published in the December issue of the top cancer science journal Cancer Cell. The treatment approach presented in the article could be called a “two-hand tumor stranglehold”. The idea is to deprive tumours of both oxygen and nutrition.
Angiogenesis, i.e. the growth of new blood vessels, is a totally normal characteristic in adults, too, as wounds need to be healed, and the menstrual cycle also requires it. Unfortunately, cancer cells are also capable of triggering vessel growth.
A counter strike has been launched for the treatment of some cancerous tumours by introducing pharmaceuticals preventing angiogenesis. However, they lack a sufficient effect in some cases, and different types of cancers may become resistant to them.

Alitalo and his research team have already previously shown that the emergence of metastases may be prevented by using antibodies that block a specific blood vessel growth factor (VEGF-C) from binding to its dock (the VEGFR-3 receptor).
It seems that the same antibodies can also prevent blood vessel growth. However, their competition with the growth factors for the docking sites in tumour vessels may sometimes result in failure of effect.

”The new antibody we have now described operates by a new principle. It does not prevent the growth factor from binding to the receptor, but prevents the activation of the receptor,” says Alitalo.

”More specifically, it prevents the pairing of the receptors needed for the activation.”
It seems that a combination of two antibodies is the most efficient option for shutting off the growth factor action: a pharmaceutical preventing receptor pairing is combined with a pharmaceutical preventing growth factor binding.

Text: Virve Pohjanpalo
Photo: Veikko Somerpuro

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