a protein that builds up in the brains of alzheimer’s patients could be causing skin cancer cells to spread easier once they reach the brain.
a study out of the new york university grossman school of medicine published in the journal
cancer discovery
says the protein amyloid beta could be responsible.
researchers chose to focus on melanoma — a type of skin cancer that can also occur in the mouth and eyes — because it spreads to the brain in 40 per cent of patients in stage 4 of the disease, the highest rate among common cancer types.
cancer unnoticed
the team also found cancer cells that secreted the amyloid beta protein slowed the immune response that would normally recognize cancer cells as harmful, and attempt to attack. the theory is that the amyloid beta moves brain immune cells into an infectious fade mode, which heals tissue, but allows the cancer to go unnoticed by the body.
to monitor how these cells and proteins interacted with one another, the researchers used
24 human samples of brain and non-brain cancer metastases — essentially cancer that has grown or spread. the team was able to show that melanoma cells from the brain are, in fact, producing the proteins related to various cognitive diseases including alzheimer’s, parkinson’s, and huntington’s.