Brain tumour’s ’addiction’ to common amino acid could be its weakness

Starving a childhood brain tumour of the amino acid glutamine could improve the effect of chemotherapy, according to an early study led by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and funded by Children with Cancer UK and the Medical Research Council. Wednesday 1 November 2017 Medulloblastoma is the most common solid primary brain tumour in children and a major cause of mortality in childhood cancers. Current treatments include a combination of surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and are effective in a majority of cases, but often associated with significant side effects, such as mental and physical disabilities. First author Maria Niklison-Chirou from QMUL said: "If we can confirm in human patients that a glutamine restriction diet can be tolerated and is effective, it may be possible to use it to reduce the drug doses required to treat a proportion of patients with medulloblastoma. This may lead to more patients being cured or allow survivors to have a better quality of life." The study, published in Genes & Development , looked at cells from medulloblastoma patients, and mice which had the disease. The researchers studied the metabolic processes that allow the tumour cells to grow, including the absorption of amino acids, with the aim of identifying new approaches to inhibit their growth and enhance current treatments. Enhancing the effect of chemotherapy in mice.