The human body is made up of countless cells that are hardwired to serve a specific purpose and make more of themselves. In cancer, normal cell activities go awry, and those bad cells begin exploiting the body’s resources to fuel their rapid spread.
In the lab of UW Carbone Cancer Center researcher Joshua Coon, PhD, scientists use technology that can examine what’s happening in real time within normal and cancerous cells to help guide new treatment research and develop biomarkers that can predict cancer risk or show disease progression.
“We’re studying proteins and metabolites and lipids, which are a lot of the molecular actors within cells. They’re the ones doing the work: they’re the fuel, they’re the energy, they’re the building blocks for a lot of how cells function, so it makes it a really nice resource for studying,” said Katie Overmyer, PhD, associate director of the Lab for Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry within Coon’s lab.
This work involves mass spectrometry, technology that adds a charge to a sample material so that it can be separated into its molecular components to show what molecules are present and how much of each.
Proteins are a key aspect of nearly every task within a cell and cancer can change how they function and how much or little of them is produced. Mass spectrometry helps researchers examine which protein changes are the main drivers of cancer cell development and spread. This helps identify biological warning signs for cancer development and can be used to track how cancer evolves and spreads. Researchers can also develop treatments that can recognize and target these cancer cell features.
Mass spectrometry also is useful to see how cells metabolize, or break down, materials like lipids, sugars and amino acids to fuel their growth. Cancer cells exploit the body’s signaling system to gather more fuel, so understanding those signaling changes and what is excreted by the cells helps researchers develop targeted treatments.
“We’re essentially trying to figure out what are those sources that are fueling the cells and what are they putting out as trash,” she said. “That trash becomes the environment that these other cells are living in and can also create some crosstalk that can either fuel and make cells grow faster or suppress them.”
Coon’s lab collaborates with several Carbone Cancer Center scientists on research that spans multiple cancer types, including how certain viruses can hijack cells and cause cancer, understanding the microenvironment outside of cancer cells, and how cancers of the same organ system are fueled by different cell mutations that require different treatment approaches.
“Our lab is a little more unique because we do have all of these technologies in one spot, so if someone wants to understand proteins, metabolites and lipids in one cell, that’s a capacity we have,” she said. “We focus on making analysis faster and having more to analyze while using less sample material.”