Ovaries from normal and tumor-bearing flies, showing tissue wasting induced by the tumor.DAVID BILDER AND ALEJANDRA FIGUEROA-CLAREVEGA/UC BERKELEYMany cancer patients suffer a wasting syndrome, called cachexia, where muscle and fat tissues are destroyed throughout the body. A tumor-secreted protein that inhibits systemic insulin signals may be one factor that drives this wasting, according to two studies on fruit fly models of cancer.
The results—published today (April 6) in Developmental Cell—implicate Impl2, a Drosophila homolog of mammalian proteins that antagonize insulin signaling, as a key player in systemic wasting. These studies are also the first to generate fruit fly models that can be used to elucidate the mechanisms underlying cancer-related cachexia. “Part of what’s exciting is the results of these papers, but what’s also exciting is that we now have a new model of cachexia that can be used to go deeper in terms of mechanism and therapeutics,” said cancer geneticist Ross Cagan of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, who reviewed one of the papers, but was not involved in either study.
Muscle wasting and loss of energy stores occurs in cancer-related cachexia but ...
