Understanding Cell Suicide

Understanding what turns on and turns off apoptosis, or cell suicide, promises to provide a new range of tools for fighting cancer.

Dr Mark Hampton is part of the Free Radical Research Group at the University of Otago, Christchurch.

Apoptosis should be switched on when something goes wrong in a cell, such as when it gets damaged or begins to grow out of control, Dr Hampton explains.

“Unfortunately in a number of cancer cells this pathway gets switched off, and the cell continues to grow.”

This resistance to apoptosis also complicates the task of oncologists who find cancer cells can become resistant to chemotherapy as well.

Eat your greens

The key for Dr Hampton and his colleagues is to find compounds that can turn apoptosis on again. They now have a particularly promising group of compounds called isothiocyanates. These are derived from cruciferous vegetables like watercress, broccoli and wasabi. Isothiocyanates are responsible for the pungency and peppery flavour of these plants.

It is already known that isothiocyanates can protect against cancer, and that they can trigger apoptosis. But Dr Hampton’s team has also discovered that one of these compounds can kill apoptosis-resistant cancer cells.

They have studied a range of different isothiocyanates and have insight into the chemical features important for promoting apoptosis.

The research team is also studying what is happening at a molecular level inside cells. Their goal is to identify the targets of isothiocyanates, and understand how they promote apoptosis in cells.

Dr Hampton believes that specialised thiol proteins inside cells are able to control processes like apoptosis and the team has developed a specialised labelling technique to monitor changes in the cellular thiol proteins.

“The technique will allow us to identify the molecular targets of the isothiocyanates. This fundamental knowledge will be crucial in working out how isothiocyanates promote apoptosis in cancer cells, and provide a foundation for developing them or related products for use in the clinic.”

This research is funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand, and has also received funding from the Cancer Society of New Zealand, the Marsden Fund, the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation and the University of Otago.

To find out more

www.hrc.govt.nz