Study reveals how melanoma evades chemotherapy
Nitric oxide (NO), a gas with many biological functions in healthy cells, can also help some cancer cells survive chemotherapy. A new study from MIT reveals one way in which this resistance may arise, and raises the possibility of weakening cancer cells by cutting off their supply of NO.The findings, presented today at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, focus on melanoma — a cancer that is difficult to treat, especially in its later stages. The prognosis is generally worse for patients whose tumors have high levels of NO, says Luiz Godoy, an MIT research associate and lead author of the study. Luiz Godoy Photo: M. Scott Brauer Godoy and his colleagues have unraveled the mechanism behind melanoma’s resistance to cisplatin, a commonly used chemotherapy drug, and, in ongoing studies, have found that cisplatin treatment also increases NO levels in breast and colon cancers.“This could be...