An important 4-year research project into aspirin and cancer is being carried out under the direction of Professor Rena Balzan at the Department of Physiology & Biochemistry and the Centre for Molecular Medicine & Biobanking of the University of Malta. The research is being financed by Malta Council for Science and Technology, through the R&I Technology Development Programme (Project R&I-2015-001).
The pain-killing drug aspirin, taken under medical advice, is of proven efficacy in the chemoprevention of bowel and other types of cancer and is currently being also investigated as a possible preventive measure in cancer recurrence. The mode of action of aspirin in cancer prevention is not fully known. Working on yeast cells which are an excellent laboratory model for the investigation of genetic and metabolic processes at the molecular level in higher animals including mammals, Balzan and co-workers have shown in a number of publications that aspirin induces a form of cell death, known as programmed cell death or apoptosis in yeast cells unable to respond adequately to oxidative stress.
In her initial studies involving gene expression and functional analysis, Professor Balzan has now shown that aspirin can decrease the level of a key intermediate of energy-producing cellular metabolism as a result of reprogramming of the expression of a number of genes. This work carried out with the main collaboration of Dr Gianluca Farrugia was communicated to the 11th International Meeting on Yeast Apoptosis held at Porto, Portugal, last October, where Dr Farrugia gave an oral presentation. Their findings attracted considerable interest as a promising line of research into the mechanism of action of aspirin in cancer prevention.
Bibliography
Balzan, R., Sapienza, K., Galea, D.R., Vassallo, N., Frey, H. and Bannister, W.H. (2004) Aspirin commits yeast cells to apoptosis depending on carbon source. Microbiology 150, 109-115.
Sapienza, K. and Balzan, R. (2005) Metabolic aspects of aspirin-induced apoptosis in yeast. FEMS Yeast Research 5, 1207-1213.
Sapienza, K., Bannister, W. and Balzan, R. (2008) Mitochondrial involvement in aspirin-induced apoptosis in yeast. Microbiology 154, 2740-2747.
Farrugia, G., Bannister, W.H., Vassallo, N. and Balzan, R. (2013) Aspirin-induced apoptosis of yeast cells is associated with mitochondrial superoxide radical accumulation and NAD(P)H oxidation. FEMS Yeast Research 13, 755-768.
Acknowledgement
Photo by Jean Claude Vancell