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Posts Taged breast-cancer

Targeting of the breast cancer stem cells to improve the treatment of triple negative breast cancer

On April 1st PhD candidate Patricia Cámara Sánchez defended her doctoral thesis entitled “Targeting of the breast cancer stem cells to improve the treatment of triple negative breast cancer“, where ICTS-Nanbiosis Unit 20 participated in the in vivo assays. The thesis was supervised by Dr. Ibane Abasolo  (scientific director of Unit 20 from CIBER-BBN and VHIR). Nanbiosis was also present within the jury, with Dr. Ana Paula Candiota (scientific coordinator of Unit 25 from CIBER-BBN and UAB) acting as secretary.

Patricia Cámara graduated as biochemist, did the master’s degree in Translational Biomedical Research from VHIR-UAB. Shortly after, started the PhD, which was aimed at improving the treatment of very deadly subtype of breast cancer by using different nanoformulations to specifically target the cancer stem cells. The now doctor Cámara-Sánchez screened up to 20 small drugs with anti-cancer stem cell activity, found synergistic ratios with conventional chemotherapeutic agents, and finally developed polymeric micelles encapsulating selected drugs. During the discussion of the dissertation, the need of additional in vivo assays was highlighted, as well as the potential use of MR provided by the U25, to explore non-invasively the metabolomic differences between cancer stem cells and regular cancer cells.

‘I’m very grateful for the opportunity to have been part of this amazing project. It has been a very enriching experience’, she explains. ‘After 5 years of research, I finish the PhD feeling very proud of having contributed to the fight against this aggressive subtype of breast cancer’, she adds. From now on, new research lines will bring forward the synergies between both units of NANBIOSIS, reinforcing a collaboration started several years ago and reflected in joint papers.

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Women in the fight against breast cancer: Ibane Ibasolo

The International Day of Women and Girls in Science on February 11 honor women’s significant achievements in science and place a much-needed focus on girls entering Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers.

We want to take this day to congratulate all the women scientists, especially our scientists at NANBIOSIS ICTS. Some of them take an active role in the dissemination of research results and reseach contribution to the society, as Dr. Ibane Abasolo who last week participated in different events to explain her team work in the figth against breast cancer.

Ibane Abasolo is the Scientific Coordinator of NANBIOSIS U20 and also the leader of the Drug Delivery & Targeting group of the CIBER-BBN at the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) which coordinates the unit 20 of NANBIOSIS, a team composed mainly by women.

The group cooworks to improve cancer treatment through the development of nanoparticles specially directed towards breast cancer stem cells. These cells are the ones that, despite dividing slowly, give rise to the differentiation of the rest of the tumor cells and are also the most resistant to conventional antitumor treatments.

That is why the group seeks to attack these cells in three ways:

i) selected drugs that induce the differentiation of tumor stem cells into more differentiated cells (and easier to treat),

2) using mechanisms to evade the efflux pumps of drugs and

3) targeting the nanoparticles specifically towards tumor stem cells by using targeting agents (ie antibodies) against antigens on the surface of tumor stem cells.

Dr. Abasolo has illustrated these three approaches by citing papers published in her group during 2021, in which the ICTS Nanbiosis U20 has also directly participated:

Gustavo Carreño, Alfredo Pereira, Fabián Ávila-Salas, Adolfo Marican, Fernanda Andrade, Maria Mercé Roca-Melendres, Oscar Valdés, Sekar Vijayakumar, Simó Schwartz, Ibane Abasolo, Diana Rafael, Esteban F. Durán-Lara, Development of “on-demand” thermo-responsive hydrogels for anti-cancer drugs sustained release: Rational design, in silico prediction and in vitro validation in colon cancer models, Materials Science and Engineering: C, Volume 131, 2021, 112483, ISSN 0928-4931, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msec.2021.112483.

Yolanda Fernández, Julie Movellan,Laia Foradada, Vanessa Giménez, Natalia García-Aranda, Sandra Mancilla, Ana Armiñán, Sven Even Borgos, Astrid Hyldbakk, Anna Bogdanska, Oliviero L. Gobbo, Adriele Prina-Mello, Jessica Ponti, Luigi Calzolai, Oleksandr Zagorodko, Elena Gallon, Amaya Niño-Pariente, Alison Paul, Simó Schwartz Jr, Ibane Abasolo, María J. Vicent In Vivo Antitumor and Antimetastatic Efficacy of a Polyacetal-Based Paclitaxel Conjugate for Prostate Cancer Therapy. Adv Healthc Mater. 2021 Oct 27;e2101544. doi: 10.1002/adhm.202101544.

Diana Rafael, Maria Mercè Roca Melendres, Fernanda Andrade, Sara Montero, Francesc Martinez-Trucharte, Mireia Vilar-Hernandez, Esteban Francisco Durán-Lara, Simó Schwartz Jr, Ibane Abasolo,
Thermo-responsive hydrogels for cancer local therapy: Challenges and state-of-art, International Journal of Pharmaceutics, Volume 606, 2021,
120954, ISSN 0378-5173, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpharm.2021.120954.

Marwa M Abu-Serie , Fernanda Andrade, Patricia Cámara-Sánchez, Joaquin Seras-Franzoso, Diana Rafael, Zamira V Díaz-Riascos, Petra Gener, Ibane Abasolo, Simó Schwartz Jr Pluronic F127 micelles improve the stability and enhance the anticancer stem cell efficacy of citral in breast cancer. Nanomedicine VOL. 16, NO. 17. 2021 Jul;16(17):1471-1485. doi: 10.2217/nnm-2021-0013.

Eva Espinosa-Cano, Miguel Huerta-Madroñal, Patricia Cámara-Sánchez, Joaquin Seras-Franzoso, Simo Schwartz, Ibane Abasolo, Julio San Román, Maria Rosa Aguilar, Hyaluronic acid (HA)-coated naproxen-nanoparticles selectively target breast cancer stem cells through COX-independent pathways, Materials Science and Engineering: C, Volume 124, 2021, 112024, ISSN 0928-4931, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msec.2021.112024.

Fernanda Andrade, Diana Rafael, Mireia Vilar-Hernández, Sara Montero, Francesc Martínez-Trucharte, Joaquin Seras-Franzoso, Zamira V. Díaz-Riascos, Ana Boullosa, Natalia García-Aranda, Patricia Cámara-Sánchez, Diego Arango, Marika Nestor, Ibane Abasolo, Bruno Sarmento, Simó Schwartz, Polymeric micelles targeted against CD44v6 receptor increase niclosamide efficacy against colorectal cancer stem cells and reduce circulating tumor cells in vivo, Journal of Controlled Release, Volume 331, 2021, 198-212, ISSN 0168-3659, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2021.01.022.

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New therapeutic strategies for the treatment of advanced breast and colon cancer

Sara Montero, researcher of the “Drug Delivery and Targeting” of CIBER-BBN and VHIR, presented her thesis work on November 22 “Nanotecnnology mediated extrategies targeting cancer stem cells for advanced cancer tratment”, directed by Dr. Simó Schwrtz and Dr Diana Rafael.

In vivo experiments where carried out through the Unit 20 of the ICTS NANBIOSIS.

The work presented by Sara Montero shows two different types of therapeutic strategies for the treatment of advanced breast and colon cancer. Both strategies focus on blocking proteins essential for the survival and proliferation of cancer stem cells (CMC), known to be the main responsible for current therapeutic failures, tumor repopulation after treatments, as well as the causes of the aggressiveness of the resulting metastases. In addition, both strategies take advantage of the advantages offered by nano-drug delivery systems (nano-DDS) to increase the therapeutic efficacy of administered anticancer agents, reduce harmful side effects and, most relevant, specifically eliminating the CMC fraction within tumors. This project has also made it possible to evaluate the effects of combined therapy, using conventional drugs for the treatment of the disease together with specific molecules for the eradication of CMC in the same nanoplatform; specifically a system of polymeric micelles made up of the amphiphilic polymer Pluronic® F127. Together, this work opens the possibility of co-administering different types of compounds to simultaneously eliminate the two main cell populations that make up tumors and thus achieve complete tumor remission.

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New therapy for triple negative breast cancer is successfully tested in preclinical animals

Researchers CIBER-BBN and NANBIOSIS Unit 26, the Príncipe Felipe Research Center (CIPF), the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and the Institut de Recerca Biomèdica (IRB) of Barcelona manage to inhibit tumor growth, reduce metastasis and decrease the toxicity of the antitumor drug Navitoclax in preclinical animal models of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).

These types of TNBC tumors do not express any of the three receptors involved in most breast cancers (estrogen, progesterone, and HER2), so the most common treatments such as hormone therapy are not viable in these patients.

This new study, led by Mar Orzáez, principal investigator of the CIPF Peptides and Proteins Laboratory and Ramón Martínez Máñez, scientific director of CIBER-BBN, NANBIOSIS Unit 26, member of the CIPF-UPV Joint Unit in Mechanisms of disease and Nanomedicine and researcher at the Interuniversity Institute of Research on Molecular Recognition and Technological Development (IDM) at UPV, shows that a combined treatment of a senescence inducer and a senolytic nanoparticle, selectively removes senescent cells, delays tumor growth and reduces metastasis in a mouse model of aggressive breast cancer.

Until now, the application of senescence inducers represents a successful treatment strategy in patients with breast cancer, although the accumulation of senescent cells in the body can sometimes promote tumor recurrence.

Cell senescence or aging takes place in both physiological and pathological situations. When a cell goes into senescence, it stops dividing and releases substances that cause inflammation.

When an uncontrolled accumulation of these senescent cells occurs, the excess of inflammatory factors can end up damaging healthy cells, thereby contributing to aging, the appearance of pathologies such as diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases or promoting the development of tumors and promoting metastasis.

With this new approach, after the induction of senescence, the cells are eliminated by treatment with a senolytic nanoparticle, and a new therapeutic opportunity opens up to improve the results in patients with breast cancer and a new combined treatment is proposed that may be relevant to other senescence-inducing chemotherapeutic drugs.

The results, published in the Journal of Controlled Release (JCR), offer new therapeutic approaches to advance in later phases and clinical trials and allow different tumor types to be addressed.

Orzáez and Máñez have pointed out that “the induction of senescence in tumors represents an advance in the treatment of cancer, which may be even greater in combination with this type of senolytic treatments that eliminate senescent cells and help reduce metastasis.”

Manuel Serrano from the Institut de Recerca Biomèdica (IRB) in Barcelona has also collaborated in the study.

Article of reference:

Irene Galiana, Beatriz Lozano-Torres, Mónica Sancho, María Alfonso, Andrea Bernardos, Viviana Bisbal, Manuel Serrano, Ramón Martínez-Máñez, Mar Orzáez, Preclinical antitumor efficacy of senescence-inducing chemotherapy combined with a nanoSenolytic, Journal of Controlled Release, Volume 323 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2020.04.045

Sourse of information: CIBER-BBN

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Targeting antitumoral proteins to breast cancer by local administration of functional inclusion bodies

Three units of NANBIOSIS have collaborated in obtaining the research results published in the article “Targeting Antitumoral Proteins to Breast Cancer by Local Administration of Functional Inclusion Bodies” published by Advanced Science

Protein production and DLS have been partially performed by the Unit 1 of ICTS NANBIOSIS Protein Production Platform (PPP) and the Unit 6 NANBIOBIS Biomaterial Processing and Nanostructuring Unit. Biodistribution and immunohistochemistry assays were performed at NANBIOSIS U20 In Vivo Experimental Platform/FVPR

Two structurally and functionally unrelated proteins, namely Omomyc and p31, are engineered as CD44‐targeted inclusion bodies produced in recombinant bacteria. In this unusual particulate form, both types of protein materials selectively penetrate and kill CD44+ tumor cells in culture, and upon local administration, promote destruction of tumoral tissue in orthotropic mouse models of human breast cancer. These findings support the concept of bacterial inclusion bodies as versatile protein materials suitable for application in chronic diseases that, like cancer, can benefit from a local slow release of therapeutic proteins.

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Ramon Martinez Mañez, Scientific Director of Unit 26 of NANBIOSIS, has participated in the development of  new nanodevices that allow the controlled release of drugs, namely doxorubicin, for therapies against breast cancer.

So far, the work has focused on cellular assays, with positive results, that could open new ways to improve the effectiveness of some drugs used in the treatment of breast cancer.

The main novelty of these nanodevices is that the molecule covering the nanodevice not only controls when the transported drugs are released, but also controls where they are released to direct them to cells expressing TLR3, a protein of the innate immune system overexpressed in some cell lines of breast cancer. Through this protein it is also launched a death signal that ends with the tumor cell.

Their study was published last January in Chemistry-A European Journal:

Ultimo A, Giménez C, Bartovsky P, Aznar E, Sancenón F, Marcos MD, Amorós P, Bernardo AR, Martínez-Máñez R, Jiménez-Lara AM, Murguía JR.Targeting Innate Immunity with dsRNA-Conjugated Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles Promotes Antitumor Effects on Breast Cancer Cells. Chemistry. Chemistry – A European Journal. DOI: 10.1002/chem.201504629

Nanbiosis_U26_New nanodevices to improve therapy for breast cancer
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