Cancer still eludes treatment, and tumors frequently evolve resistance mechanisms to get around medications.
![Cancer Cells Tricked To Destroy Themselves By Genetic Editing](https://trak.in/stories/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-30-at-9.15.21 AM-1024x617.png)
By making cancer cells suicidal and turning them against one another, scientists have created a novel way to fight cancer.
Cancer Cells Self-Destruction Through Genetic Editing
Two “switches” are inserted into engineered cancer cells using this method:
- When exposed to a particular drug, the first switch causes the altered cells to multiply and take over the tumor population.
- The dominant modified cells and their unmodified neighbors are killed by a toxin released by the second switch.
The “dual switch selection gene drive,” an inventive technique, was described in detail in a study that was published in Nature Biotechnology.
As tumors develop resistance mechanisms, such as inactivating medications or changing specific pathways, current cancer treatments face difficulties.
Although there are few effective options, particularly for cancers with unclear therapeutic targets, combination therapies are frequently used to combat resistance.
The novel method adopts a different strategy by taking advantage of the tumor’s capacity for quick evolution and turning it against it.
Lung Cancer Cells and Medication Employed by Researchers
Researchers employed lung cancer cells and the medication erlotinib, which normally inhibits the EGFR protein to stop unchecked growth, in proof-of-concept studies.
By giving lung cancer cells a “suicide gene” that counteracted the effects of erlotinib, the researchers were able to make the altered cells multiply quickly in response to the medication.
The engineered cells dominated the tumor population when erlotinib was administered to a mixture of modified and unmodified cells.
Once dominance was attained, the researchers stopped using erlotinib and used 5-FC, a harmless substance, to activate the second “suicide gene”.
The entire tumor population was essentially eradicated by the second gene’s expression of an enzyme that changed 5-FC into the extremely toxic anti-cancer medication 5-FU.
Within 20 days, the altered cells surpassed the original tumors in mice with non-small cell lung cancer.
After the second gene was activated, the mice’s tumors completely regressed by day 80.
To ascertain this method’s wider applicability, researchers are currently experimenting with different cancer types and medication combinations.