Southampton scientist to study ‘sugar craving’ of breast cancer cells

Cancer cells use up a lot of glucose (sugar) to provide the fuel they need to multiply, and this rapid increase in the amount of glucose they burn has other effects, causing the cells to behave more aggressively.

At present, people with breast cancer can receive a variety of treatments, but sadly not everyone responds to these treatments in the same way. Greater understanding about the differences between normal and cancer cells, and their behaviours, is therefore needed in order to find new ways to treat people with the disease and improve their chances of survival.

Dr Jeremy Blaydes, based at the University of Southampton, will lead a three-year project to explore how this dependence on glucose – breast cancer’s ‘sweet tooth’ – might be exploited to develop new treatments against the disease.

Dr Blaydes will first use lab-grown breast cancer cells to study how the sudden switch to using more glucose influences how the cells multiply, survive, and respond to treatments such as chemotherapy. He then hopes to find ‘markers’ that might be used to tell how much more glucose a tumour is using, which could help to identify whether it might be susceptible to new treatments that target this sugar dependence.

With previous funding from Breast Cancer Now, Dr Blaydes found that proteins called ‘CtBPs’ may cause the change in behaviour seen when breast cancer cells switch to burning more glucose. Through investigation in the lab and in mice, Dr Blaydes will now be continuing this work by stopping these CtBP proteins from working, in order to see whether this also stops breast tumours from growing.

Dr Richard Berks, Senior Research Communications Officer at Breast Cancer Now, said:

“We must find ways to stop the disease in its tracks, and, if we are to achieve this, there is still so much that we need to uncover about what triggers the growth of breast cancer cells and fuels their aggressive behaviour. 

“Dr Blaydes’ research in this area could lead to new treatments that exploit breast cancer’s ‘sugar craving’, ultimately helping to provide more appropriate and targeted therapies and maximising the chances of survival for women with the disease.”

Nearly 1,200 women in Hampshire are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, and over 250 women in the county sadly die from the disease each year1.

Dr Blaydes’ grant announcement also comes the day after Southampton-based company, Veho UK Ltd, announced that they would generously be donating their Southampton FC shirt sponsorship space to Breast Cancer Now for the premiership game against Leicester City FC at St Mary’s on 17th October.

Proud supporters of the charity and official sponsors for Southampton FC, Veho have committed to donating a minimum of £25,000 this year to help fund Breast Cancer Now’s life-saving research.

Launched in June 2015 with the ambition of stopping women dying from the disease by 2050, Breast Cancer Now is the UK’s largest breast cancer charity, created by the merger of Breast Cancer Campaign and Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

_{1. Source of information: Incidence, mortality, and survival statistics were obtained from the Health and Social Care Information Centre (https://indicators.ic.nhs.uk/webview/). Incidence statistics were based upon women diagnosed between 2010 and 2012. Mortality statistics were based upon women dying from breast cancer between 2011 and 2013.}