Australian scientists uncover how lung cancer cells can predict treatment response

NEW DELHI — Scientists in Australia have mapped the "neighbourhoods" of lung cancer cells and found that cell metabolism plays a key role in determining how patients respond to immunotherapy.

Researchers from the University of Queensland's (UQ) Frazer Institute studied cell interactions at cellular resolution in non-small cell lung carcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer, to better understand why some patients don't respond to immunotherapy treatment, Xinhua news agency reported.

Using machine-learning algorithms and computational approaches, the team examined how cells interact and metabolise glucose, which cancer cells thrive on, said Associate Professor Arutha Kulasinghe from UQ's Frazer Institute.

"We were able to dive deep into the complex nature of cells, basically looking at the cells' personal lives in the complex composition of a tumour, and found certain metabolic neighbourhoods were associated with response and resistance to immunotherapy," Kulasinghe said.

Immunotherapy is costly and benefits only a minority of patients, he said. The researchers added that "it's important to understand how to identify these patients, and those that might need combination or alternative therapies."

Lead author James Monkman from UQ's Frazer Institute said higher glucose uptake in cancer cells was associated with poorer outcomes.

"We know cancer cells love sugar, and we analysed where glucose was being processed in the cells and where it wasn't," Monkman said.

"You could have a region of a tumour processing glucose in a completely different way to another area of the tumour."

The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

The next step is to develop targeted treatments, such as with metabolic inhibitors, to make immunotherapy more effective, and eventually enable precision medicine tailored to each patient's tumour, with plans to extend the approach to other cancers, the researchers said.