A research team led by Prof. DAI Haiming from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) recently announced the constitutive BAK/MCL1 complexes could predict chemotherapy drugs sensitivity of ovarian cancer.

Result has been published on Cell death & disease.

According to the activation and interaction status of BAK in cell, the researchers found that the sensitivity of blood and lymphoma tumour cells to BH3 analogs could be predicted, so they took ovarian cancer as the research object, and analysed the relationship between the state of BAK in tumour cells and the sensitivity of the tumour to traditional chemotherapeutics.

The incidence of ovarian cancer ranks third among gynaecological tumours.

Ovarian cancer is currently treated with traditional chemotherapeutics, including platinum drugs and paclitaxel, which are not very efficient, and the anti-tumour drug sensitivity prediction can effectively improve the quality of life or life cycle of patients.

Currently, a variety of methods based on genetic genes, in vitro drug screening, and patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models have been applied to predict the susceptibility of anti-tumour drugs.

In this work, the researchers found that BAK/MCL1 complex in tumour cells can predict the sensitivity of paclitaxel, MCL1 inhibitors, and their combination. Further studies on PDX models and animal experiments also illustrate the predictive effect of the BAK/MCL1 complex.

Source: Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences