Sydney, Jan 14
Australian researchers have found that DNA repair may determine how cancer cells die following radiotherapy in a new study that may help improve cancer treatment and cure rates.
To understand how cancerous tumour cells die after being subjected to radiotherapy, scientists from Sydney's Children's Medical Research Institute (CMRI) followed irradiated cells for one week after radiation therapy by using live cell microscope technology, said an announcement by CMRI, News agency reported.
"The surprising result of our research is that DNA repair, which normally protects healthy cells, determines how cancer cells die following radiotherapy," said Tony Cesare, head of the CMRI Genome Integrity Unit.
He said that the study found that DNA repair processes can recognise when overwhelming damage has occurred, such as from radiotherapy, and instruct a cancer cell how to die.
When DNA damaged by radiation was repaired by a method called homologous recombination, they found that cancer cells died during reproduction, a process called cell division or mitosis.
Cesare said that death during cell division goes unnoticed by the immune system so does not activate the desired immune response.