Sugar sneaks cancer therapy into the brain

Hello Nature readers,
This week, we hear that sugar can help cancer therapies cross the blood-brain barrier, learn that yoghurt might protect against colorectal cancer and discover that sperm production has been restored in a man who survived childhood cancer.

Sugar sneaks cancer therapy into the brain

Scientists have designed a brain cancer therapy that can cross the blood-brain barrier using a sugar molecule as a disguise. They coated an mRNA-containing nanoparticle with a sugar called mannose that can pass through the selective barrier. Once inside, the sugar-coated nanoparticles built up around the tumour, delivering mRNA that instructed the cancer cells to produce the tumor-suppressing protein PTEN. In mice with glioblastoma, this therapy suppressed tumour growth and extended survival.

Yoghurt might help prevent bowel cancer

Probiotics, prebiotics or fermented foods such as yoghurt might help protect against colorectal cancer in older people. Between 2001 and 2020, more than 9,000 people aged 50 or over were surveyed about their diet and their history of cancer. People who consumed yoghurt, prebiotics or probiotics had almost half the rate of colorectal cancer as those who did not (1.2% versus 2.1%). While this study can’t demonstrate a causal link, it’s possible that maintaining a microbiome-promoting diet decreased the risk of colorectal cancer, say the authors.

Transplant restores sperm-making

A man’s ability to make sperm has been restored after a transplant of tissue samples that were removed from one of his testicles and frozen 16 years earlier, when he was ten years old. The samples were taken shortly before he received chemotherapy treatments that put his fertility at risk. Whether the sperm collected from the transplanted tissue can successfully fertilize an egg, and produce a healthy baby, remains to be seen. But the achievement could mark the beginning of a new wave of fertility treatments, scientists say.

The genes driving deadly breast cancer

Researchers have identified some of the genes driving the most aggressive form of breast cancer. Basal-like breast cancer cells generally have too many or too few chromosomes, an abnormality called aneuploidy. Figuring out which genes on these chromosomes are relevant for cancer has been difficult because there are so many of them. Researchers used a technique called CRISPR knockout- and activation-linked assay (CRISPR-KOALA) to screen more than 3,700 genes in mice and identified 84 that drive the growth of tumours.

‘Devastating’ side effects are being missed

Many people who would have died from cancer in the past are now surviving thanks to the plethora of treatment options available. But the existing frameworks don't account for the extended duration of side effects that can come with that, says a Nature Medicine editorial. “Even low-grade adverse effects such as rash and diarrhoea can become functionally and psychologically devastating when experienced over a long period of time”. To fix this problem, the way we report, track and manage side effects needs a major overhaul, the editorial argues.