Is iron in the driving seat for sarcoma?
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Is iron in the driving seat for sarcoma? The role of iron in the development of soft tissue sarcoma and the potential of iron chelation as a novel therapeutic strategy.
IRAS ID
286265
Contact name
Aaron P Kisiel
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
ERN_20-0659, Ethics Reference Number
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 4 months, 3 days
Research summary
Iron is essential to the function of our bodies. From the building blocks of haemoglobin to the critical processes within healthy cells, iron is central to life. Excess iron can also be dangerous and levels in the body are tightly controlled. One of the main jobs of iron is to control a major protein that enables cells to grow and divide, it physically helps build DNA. Thus, unsurprisingly iron can be captured by cancer cells to help them divide. Cancer cells achieve this by dramatically increasing the number of iron grabbing receptors, to pull iron directly in and allow it to be used to build DNA much faster and also switch on genes that encourage further growth. This process has been well described in cancers of the bowel, oesophagus and breast. The purpose of this project is to see if iron is also driving sarcoma cell growth and to see if medicines that can bind to iron within the cell, to remove it, can be used to kill sarcoma cells. In addition, one of the biggest problems in cancer therapy is that cancer cells can and do in many instances, acquire resistance to chemotherapy and there is some evidence that using iron binding medicines might help to overcome that resistance and ensure that the chemotherapy remains effective. We thus wish to determine if this is also the case in sarcoma through in-vitro (on commercially available cell lines and soft tissue sarcoma samples removed from patients undergoing surgery) and in-vivo (in a murine animal model) experimentation. If so, this could pave the way for a more effective chemotherapy for patients with sarcoma.
REC name
West Midlands - South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/WM/0142
Date of REC Opinion
21 Jun 2021
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion