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Cancer cells acidify their environment and consequently, the interior of the cells is alkalised. In principle, this deregulation should hinder the development and proliferation of these cells. However, the opposite happens in cancer.
A computational study co-authored by computational chemist Miquel Duran-Frigola, from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), has demonstrated that cancer cells proliferate less and in a less robust manner when their internal pH is lowered, that is to say it becomes more acidic.
Using hundreds of thousands of data from previous biochemical assays and a database on the gene expression of cancer cells, the researchers developed a computational model that analyses how variations in pH affect the activity of more than 1500 metabolic enzymes.
The researchers confirmed the hypothesis that they initially formulated. According to the hypothesis, if cancer cells proliferate easily in an alkaline environment, then they would be more vulnerable under acidic conditions. This paves the way to considering the acidification of the cancer cells combined with more conventional therapies.
Rhe researchers have identified the metabolic enzymes that work synergistically with intracellular acidity in the development of cancer, thus revealing these molecules as possible therapeutic targets. Five of these potential targets have already been tested in the lab using breast cancer cell lines and have yielded good results.