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Frequently, in the clinic, metastatic patients do not have effective treatments to combat their disease. In fact, the majority of cancer patients die today of metastases. In this sense, the conclusions of a study carried out by VHIO researchers shed new hope for these people, since they open the door to a new therapeutic opportunity for them.
It is known that the MYC protein plays a prominent role in the development of almost all solid tumors and, in this sense, Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) has been working with her for some time to develop a therapeutic alternative. In fact, through its spin-off Peptomyc, already has designed a drug, Omomyc, which is a miniprotein capable of inhibiting MYC that has given very good results in the multiple preclinical trials in which it has been tested.
However, despite the fact that, as Laura Soucek, co-director of Translational and Preclinical Research and head of the Antitumor Therapies Modeling Group at VHIO, ICREA researcher and executive director of Peptomyc, points out, “So far we are absolutely convinced that inhibiting MYC can stop the growth of the primary tumor”, This conclusion is not so evident in those referring to tumor processes in which there are metastases. “There are conflicting data in the literature about the role of MYC in metastasis and some laboratories around the world have even suggested that inhibiting MYC could promote metastasis”says the researcher.
At a time when preclinical trials with Omomyc have already been carried out and the safety of the drug is being verified in patients without therapeutic alternatives, in fairly advanced stages of the disease and who, therefore, in most cases are metastatic , the hypothesis that by inhibiting MYC the primary tumor would be stopping, but perhaps metastasis could be increasing, worried the researchers, especially because, as Dr. Soucek recalls, “we now have the first MYC inhibitor in trials in patients and we can’t risk causing more metastases.”
It is because of that VHIO researchers launched a study focused on the role of MYC in metastases to try to confirm that with Omomyc there is no risk of promoting metastasis in patients, but that it is a therapeutic opportunity for all of them. Specifically, this work has focused on breast cancer due to its high incidence in Spain and because it had already been seen that the drug could be effective against different types of cancer, always in primary tumors, but it was not known whether it could also be effective in breast cancer, nor was it known whether could fight metastasis.
“In this study what we have done has been use models of breast cancer and, in particular, of triple negative breast cancer, which is a subtype of breast cancer that has a very poor prognosis because there are very few drugs that can fight this type of cancer, to resolve the controversy over the role of Myc in the metastatic process”explains Daniel Massó, Peptomyc researcher and first author of the article published in Cancer Research Communications.
“We have seen that we were not only able to reduce the primary tumor, as we expected, but also had an impact on metastases, on all aspects of the metastatic process, since the cells can leave the primary tumor and reach the circulation until their establishment in the secondary organs and also their growth there, in those secondary organs”, comments Massó, who in this regard highlights that “With Omomyc we can stop these different moments of the metastatic process”. Thus, the results of this work are very positive. “We have shown that treating metastatic patients with a Myc inhibitor would be beneficial for them. and this allows us to have a proof of concept to, in the future, include patients with breast cancer, and in particular with triple-negative breast cancer in our clinical trials”, highlights Massó.
For his part, Soucek indicates that “we have carried out prevention and intervention studies. Prevention can be very important because most breast cancer patients first undergo surgery to remove the primary tumor and the big risk is that there may be recurrence elsewhere in the body and one possibility would be to treat the patients with Omomyc at the time of surgery to prevent the appearance of metastases later, but in addition, studies also show that if we intervene in already established metastases we could have a benefit, since these metastases could be reduced or, at least, stopped in its growth.”
In short, as Massó emphasizes, “the conclusion of the study is so important because it assures us that with Omomyc we are not risking increasing metastasis in patients, but rather we have a therapeutic opportunity for all of them”. In this regard, Soucek recalls that “patients with triple negative cancer have very few therapeutic options, but when we talk about metastasis in general, unfortunately, in the clinic, metastatic patients often do not have effective treatments and we now have a new therapeutic opportunity for this type of patients”.
Despite the fact that, as Massó points out, “for now, these studies with Omomyc are being carried out with human and mouse cell models and, although they give very positive results that make us very hopeful, the results of the clinical trials in the that we are working now to demonstrate that these good results are also translated into patients”. But in addition, “given that metastasis is a common process in many types of cancer, the belief is that the results of the trials with Omomyc could also be extrapolated to other types of cancer, which is why we will soon expand these studies to test their efficacy in different oncological indications”, advances the researcher.
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