Researchers at the University of Virginia have discovered a new mechanism driving drug resistance in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, one of the deadliest cancers. Their findings could lead to more effective treatments, providing hope for patients facing this aggressive disease. Their research is published in the journal Cancer Research .
Unveiling the role of hypoxia in pancreatic cancer progression Pancreatic tumors are notorious for their resistance to chemotherapy, due in part to their dense, poorly vascularized tissue structure, which creates areas of low oxygen, or hypoxia, within the tumor. Professor Matthew J. Lazzara, who holds appointments in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and his team from UVA Engineering set out to investigate how this hypoxic environment contributes to cancer cells becoming more aggressive and harder to treat.
"Our question was simple: Does the low-oxygen environment in pancreatic tumors drive cancer cells to become more resistant to chemotherapy? And if so, is this through the same pathways as those triggered by growth factors ?" Lazzara said. Growth factors are naturally occurring proteins in the body that stimulate cell growth and survival. In cancer, they can also help tumors grow and evade treatments like chemotherapy by triggering changes that make cancer cells harder to destroy.
The team's findings were striking. They showed that hypoxia indeed pushes pancreatic cancer cells into a mor.