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Research by a ULB team led by Professor Cédric Blanpain has made it possible to better define the “identity” of stem cells. Which could help to understand and fight breast and prostate cancer.
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A team of researchers from the Free University of Brussels led by Professor Cédric Blanpain has identified for the first time the mechanisms by which communication between cells controls the identity of stem cells in the mammary gland and the prostate. A discovery that should have important implications for understanding the mechanisms of cancer formation linked to these organs. The results of this new study, which was supported by many patrons, including the FNRS, Télévie, the Baillet-Latour Foundation, the Foundation Against Cancer or the European Research Council, have just been published in the prestigious journal Nature, which even covered it this week.
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A kind of hybrid cellular state
ULB researchers have discovered that communication between the two types of cells (called basal and luminal) of the mammary gland and the prostate restricted the ability of stem cells from these same glands to generate several other cells (a phenomenon called multipotency). Through new genetic approaches and single-cell RNA sequencing, scientists have been able to identify a kind of new hybrid cellular state that accompanies the regeneration of different tissues.
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“Prostate cancer is the most common in men and breast cancer is the most common in women. Cancers for which we still need to find new avenues for treatment.”
Cédric Blanpain
Director of the Stem Cells and Cancer Laboratory at the ULB Faculty of Medicine.
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The researchers then identified the molecules that control the multipotency of stem cells in different tissues. “Since multipotency is associated with the formation of breast and prostate cancer, the identification of molecules that control multipotency of stem cells will hopefully serve to inhibit the formation of cancers “, explained Professor Cédric Blanpain, director of the stem cells and cancer laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine of ULB and investigator Welbio, the Walloon public fund dedicated to life sciences. “As it seems that we need to go through this hybrid state to develop cancers, maybe if we blocked the formation of this hybrid state in cancer, we could possibly block the formation of this disease. This is a hypothesis that we are currently testing in our laboratories. We are certainly talking about prostate and breast cancer here, but you know that prostate cancer is the most common in men and that breast cancer is the most common in women. Cancers for which we still need to find new avenues for treatment. “
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According to Cédric Blanpain, whose work on stem cells has already won several awards, several of the molecules identified in the study are already being tested in clinical trials to treat breast cancer. ULB’s work could therefore possibly explain the mode of operation of these molecules under evaluation, “even if it is possible that these drugs act in another way. This remains to be discovered”, concludes the professor.
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