Tuesday, 16 July 2019
Researchers at the University of Nottingham have discovered that repurposing a heart drug could significantly increase the survival rate for children with ependymoma – a type of brain tumour.
The findings, published in Scientific Reports and led by experts in the University’s Schools of Medicine and Life Sciences, suggest that co-treatment with a drug normally used to treat cardiac hypertrophy can overcome chemotherapy resistance and increase survival in over a third of ependymoma patients.
Ependymoma are the second most common malignant brain tumours in children. They can occur across all age groups, but the outcome for children is lower than in their adult counterpart. The poorest survival is seen in infants, with the five year prognosis at just 42-55%.
The use of chemotherapy in children with ependymomas has had variable levels of success, leading to the frequent belief that ependymomas are chemoresistant tumours, since over half of tumours cannot be cured by chemotherapy alone.
The study was led by Dr Beth Coyle from the University of Nottingham’s School of Medicine and Dr Ian Kerr from the School of Life Sciences. The PhD student who undertook the research, Durgagauri Sabnis, was a recipient of a University of Nottingham Vice Chancellor’s Research Excellence Scholarship and the British Federation of Women Graduates (BFWG) foundation grant.
We are hopeful that by combining this repurposed drug with current treatments we can give new hope for long term survival to patients with these devastating brain tumours”.
In this study the authors set out to determine the nature of this chemoresistance. They show that, in patients treated with chemotherapy alone, the presence of a chemotherapy drug-pumping protein called ABCB1 was associated with a significantly poorer outcome.
Tumours that expressed ABCB1 were less likely to respond to chemotherapy and more likely to be locally invasive.
The authors then used a heart drug to inhibit ABCB1 function in cells taken from patient’s tumours. The heart drug was able to stop ABCB1 pumping chemotherapy drugs out of the tumour cells making them more sensitive to chemotherapy and less able to migrate.
ABCB1 is expressed in over one third of patient’s tumours, all of whom could potentially benefit from repurposing of this heart drug in future clinical trials.
A full copy of the report – ‘A role for ABCB1 in prognosis, invasion and drug resistance in ependymoma’ - can be found here.
Story credits
More information is available from Dr Beth Coyle from the University of Nottingham’s School of Medicine at beth.coyle@nottingham.ac.uk
Notes to editors:
About the University of Nottingham
Ranked 32 in Europe and 16th in the UK by the QS World University Rankings: Europe 2024, the University of Nottingham is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience, and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our students. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement.
Nottingham was crowned Sports University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 – the third time it has been given the honour since 2018 – and by the Daily Mail University Guide 2024.
The university is among the best universities in the UK for the strength of our research, positioned seventh for research power in the UK according to REF 2021. The birthplace of discoveries such as MRI and ibuprofen, our innovations transform lives and tackle global problems such as sustainable food supplies, ending modern slavery, developing greener transport, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The university is a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally - and our graduates are the second most targeted by the UK's top employers, according to The Graduate Market in 2022 report by High Fliers Research.
We lead the Universities for Nottingham initiative, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, a pioneering collaboration between the city’s two world-class institutions to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for residents in the city and region we are proud to call home.
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