Fat cells turned into anti-cancer missiles

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia, July 3 (UPI) -- European biomedical engineers said Tuesday they have found a way to turn human fat cells into anti-cancer guided missiles.

Researchers in Slovakia took fat cells and engineered them into "suicide genes" that seek cancer cells that have metastacized, or spread through the body.

"These fat-derived stem cells could be exploited for personalized cell-based therapeutics," said Cestmir Altaner, an associate professor in the Cancer Research Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava.

"Nearly everyone has some fat tissue they can spare, and this tissue could be a source of cells for cancer treatment that can be adapted into specific vehicles for drug transport," he reported in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The stem cells are extracted from human fat tissue. These cells, Altaner said, migrate to cancer cells in an attempt to repair what is viewed by the stem cells as damaged tissue. He said that this property of the cells might be used to find the cancer cells and help destroy them.

In experiments with mice that were engrafted with human colon cancer, researchers first injected the engineered mesenchymal stem cells, then the anti-cancer drug 5-fluorouracil. They found tumor growth was markedly inhibited in the animals, and none of the mice exhibited any signs of toxic side effects.

However, none of the animals remained tumor-free. "The procedure was quite effective even though we applied the stem cells just once. Obviously, repeated treatment will increase the efficacy, as would using this strategy in combination with other treatments," Altaner said.