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Saturday 1st July 2006

 When is ‘normal’ not normal?
A new approach to studying bowel cancer

Scientists at the Institute of Food Research have discovered that tissue that is apparently normal in patients with bowel cancer behaves differently from that of healthy people.

Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer and causes over 16,000 deaths in the UK each year. These results, published today (1st July) in the US journal Cancer Research, have important implications for how cancer research is carried out and could lead to a greater understanding of how diet and environmental factors contribute to causing this type of cancer, highlighting new strategies for prevention and treatment.

Whereas previous research in this area has tended to focus on the tumour itself, this study in collaboration with researchers from Newcastle University and Wansbeck Hospital in Northumberland, concentrates on changes found in the non-tumour bowel tissue in cancer patients that appears normal.

“This is a different approach to cancer research, with the emphasis being on prevention rather than treatment” says Prof Ian Johnson who led the research, “Previous studies compare tumour tissue with non-tumour tissue from the same patient. This is the first study that has compared apparently normal tissue from cancer patients with tissue from healthy subjects to see which factors predispose certain people to bowel cancer. The next step is to find out how abnormal levels of particular proteins contribute to the development of cancer”.

Image showing protein levels in healthy bowel tissue

The scientists compared the levels of proteins present in tissue taken from nine patients with colorectal cancer, nine patients with polyps and thirteen healthy subjects. They used the latest proteomic fingerprinting techniques to identify a significant number of proteins that were found in different amounts in the three sample groups. Of particular interest was a family of proteins called cytokeratins that had altered levels in the cancer and polyp patients compared with the healthy subjects, with some protein levels being raised whilst others were decreased. This family of proteins helps maintain the normal structure of the tissue lining the bowel, although their precise role in cancer is still unclear.

Prof John Mathers (Newcastle University) adds, "Now that we have identified a number of proteins which are potential early markers of bowel cancer risk, the challenge is to discover which are sensitive to the effects of diet and other lifestyle factors so that we can use them as surrogate endpoints in intervention studies of bowel cancer prevention."                           

Contacts

Dr Vicky Just, Norwich Bioscience Institutes Press Office:
+44 (0)1603 255111 Mobile +44 (0)7887 707393
email: victoria.just@bbsrc.ac.uk

Prof Ian Johnson, Institute of Food Research:
+44 (0)1603 255330  email: ian.johnson@bbsrc.ac.uk

Notes for Editors

• Images are available upon request to the Press Office.
• Proteomic analysis separates proteins that are present in a particular tissue and then identifies them individually. This technique enables researchers to compare the function of diseased and healthy tissue.
• This research is published in Polley et al. (2006) Cancer Research 66 (13).
• The mission of the Institute of Food Research (www.ifr.ac.uk) is to undertake international quality scientific research relevant to food and human health and to work in partnership with others to provide underpinning science for consumers, policy makers, the food industry and academia. It is a company limited by guarantee, with charitable status, grant aided by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (www.bbsrc.ac.uk).

• Newcastle University Human Nutrition Research Centre was established in 1994. More information about the HNRC may be found at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/medi/research/nutrition/aims.htm

• This work was funded by the Food Standards Agency (www.food.gov.uk ) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (www.bbsrc.ac.uk ).
• Statistics for bowel cancer can be found on the Cancer Research UK’s website: http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/bowel/?a=5441

 

Ends

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