Research into cell energy offers potential target for cancer drugs

The study is part of an ongoing effort to fight disease by manipulating energy regulation of cells, an essential process for keeping cells from dying off too quickly. The researchers hope the results could signal new advances for combating cancerous tumor growth, type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Kinases encompass a large family of enzyme proteins that play key roles in the workings of most animal cells. AMP-activated kinase (AMPK) is responsible for managing energy within cellular pathways. According to the researcher’s previous findings, AMPK can alter deficits in the cell if it is first activated, or “turned on” by the tumor-suppressing kinase LKB1. The new study was designed to investigate whether AMPK could be activated by anything else.

Working with cervical and lung cancer cells the scientists discovered that two kinases in these cells, CaMKKá and CaMKKâ, are able to regulate AMPK independent of LBK1.

“With the addition of these two kinases, we think we have all nearly the players responsible for energy regulation within the cell, which should offer new opportunities in cancer treatment,” said Rebecca Hurley, lead author of the study and a graduate student in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Program at Dartmouth Medical School.

“If we can stifle a cancer cell’s ability to adapt to an energy deficit, it might lose its growth advantage,” explained Hurley.

In addition to cancer-fighting potential of AMPK regulation, the enzyme also responds to changes in insulin or glucose and mediates impaired energy metabolism, a hallmark of type 2 diabetes, providing a new target for the treatment of diabetes and obesity.