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Cholesterol drugs could help Tassie devils

Ethan JamesAAP
Cholesterol inhibitors have been found to reduce the growth of facial tumours in Tasmanian devils.
Camera IconCholesterol inhibitors have been found to reduce the growth of facial tumours in Tasmanian devils. Credit: AP

Drugs to lower cholesterol in people could slow the spread of the deadly facial tumour disease in Tasmanian devils.

Australian and Spanish scientists studied the molecular and metabolic mechanisms of the disease and found the facial tumour cells need a minimum amount of cholesterol to multiply.

If cholesterol synthesis is drastically reduced, the tumours don't grow.

The research, largely undertaken at Brisbane's QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, has been published in the scientific journal Cell Reports.

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"Our laboratory experiments showed devil facial tumour disease cells grew and spread more, using glucose as a source of energy," lead researcher, Dr Manuel A. Fernandez-Rojo, said.

"We used this understanding of the biology that drives the disease to examine if statins, which are drugs that inhibit cholesterol synthesis, would stop the tumour cells multiplying.

"We found statins reduced the growth of the devil facial tumours in the laboratory."

Dr Fernandez-Rojo said the metabolic drivers underlying devil facial tumour disease had not been thoroughly studied until now.

He said more research was needed to see if cholesterol-lowering drugs could be used to inhibit, or at least slow, the growth of the disease.

Devil facial tumour disease is an aggressive form of cancer that can spread when the carnivorous marsupials bite each other.

Zoos Victoria estimates fewer than 15,000 Tasmanian devils remain in the wild, an 80 per cent drop in population since the cancer emerged in the mid-1990s.

The study's other lead researcher, Dr Maria Ikonomopoulou, said the findings could also have implications for the treatment of malignant and highly aggressive cancers in people.

"We know statins work on tumour cells in lab experiments, so we now want to expand our study of the drugs in stopping the spread of cancer tumours," she said.

"Human cancer cells undergo similar metabolic adaptation to grow as those exhibited by (devil facial tumour) cells in our research.

"This raises the question of whether statins, which are currently prescribed for the treatment of cardiovascular disease and diabetes in humans, could also be used to help treat very aggressive human cancers such as melanoma, pancreatic or colon cancer."

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