This project saw Professor Martin Michaelis, Professor Mark Wass and team test the activity of miyabeacin, a new pharmacologically active compound derived from willow, in resistant cancer cell lines. This was the continuation of a collaboration with researchers from Rothamsted Research in which they had previously tested extracts from willow and identified miyabeacin as a novel substance with anti-cancer activity.
The main reason for the failure of anti-cancer therapies is the emergence of drug resistance. To study the mechanisms of acquired drug resistance, i.e. treatment failure after an initial response, and to provide pre-clinical models of acquired resistance, the team have established the Resistant Cancer Cell Line (RCCL) collection, a unique collection of 2,800 drug-adapted cancer cell lines. In this follow-up project, they tested miyabeacin in a set of colorectal cancer cell lines from the collection, including parental cell lines and their sublines adapted to 5-fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, and irinotecan (i.e. anti-cancer drugs that are commonly used for the treatment of colorectal cancer).
The team found that miyabeacin was more effective in their colorectal cancer cell line panel than in the breast cancer and neuroblastoma cell lines that they had used before. Moreover, the resistant sublines were as sensitive to miyabeacin as the parental cell lines. These findings warrant the further investigation of miyabeacin for the treatment of colorectal cancer.
This project is funded by Kent’s Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) scheme. IAAs are institutional awards that have been introduced by Research Councils within UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to deliver funding mechanisms for knowledge exchange and impact activities.