New Delhi: Nanoparticles are not just Marvel comics lore, they are used in advanced medical treatment to deliver anti-cancer drugs to tumour cells. But they are often flushed out by the liver. Researchers have now found a way to make these medicines work.
According to a study published in Nature Materials researchers have found a way to change the gut microbiome and enhance the effectiveness of nanoparticle-based cancer drugs.
“For decades, scientists have tried to address how aggressively the liver filters out nanomedicine by redesigning the drugs themselves. Our research shows that the host’s biology, specifically the gut microbiome, is just as important as the particle design. This is the first study to demonstrate that the gut microbiome can directly impact chemotherapy, opening up an entirely new strategy for boosting cancer treatment,” Wen Jiang, associate professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Texas and co-author, said in a statement.
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Nanoparticle chemotherapy
Nanoparticle chemotherapy uses liposomes, polymers, proteins, or such microscopic carriers to deliver anti-cancer drugs. It is often flushed by immune cells in the liver called Kupffer cells.
Until now researchers only focused on trying to redesign the nanoparticles themself. But the Texas team found that changing the patient’s gut environment might just make these medicines work better.
The study says that gut bacteria sends signals to liver cells through bile acids. However, an antibiotic called metronidazole can reduce the production of bile acid, making sure that Kupffer cells turn “quiet” and not flush out the cancer drugs.
When researchers tested out the results on colon, breast, pancreatic, and melanoma cancers, they found that the cancer drugs got significantly more effective. By giving a short course of the metronidazole, the gut bacteria was altered in a way that allowed cancer drugs to stay in the human body for nearly double the amount of time it did before. Tumor growth also got slower and survival rates rose.
It is important to note that the results are still a part of pre-clinical trial models. However, since the antibiotic metronidazole has already received FDA approvals, further trials might be easier to conduct.
These findings suggest that in the future nanoparticle chemotherapy could be coupled with a short course of antibiotic treatment designed to target the microbiome. Further research could also focus on manipulating bile acids and finding other ways of altering the gut microbiome to make cancer treatments efficient.
“By understanding how the microbiome shapes drug delivery, we can begin thinking about chemotherapy not just as a drug-tumor interaction, but as a drug-microbiome-host interaction, which changes how we might design treatment plans for patients in the future,” said Jennifer Wargo, professor of surgical oncology and genomic medicine.