Starving medulloblastoma of the amino acid glutamine could improve the effect of chemotherapy, according to an early study led by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and funded by Children with Cancer UK and the Medical Research Council.

First author Maria Niklison-Chirou from QMUL said: “If we can confirm in human patients that a glutamine restriction diet can be tolerated and is effective, it may be possible to use it to reduce the drug doses required to treat a proportion of patients with medulloblastoma. This may lead to more patients being cured or allow survivors to have a better quality of life.”

The study, published in the journal Genes & Development, looked at cells from medulloblastoma patients, and mice which had the disease. The researchers studied the metabolic processes that allow the tumour cells to grow, including the absorption of amino acids, with the aim of identifying new approaches to inhibit their growth and enhance current treatments.

The team found that a proportion of medulloblastoma were ‘addicted’ to glutamine—an amino acid which is usually non-essential in normal cells. They then fed a glutamine-restricted diet to mice with the disease, and found that this enhanced the effect of chemotherapy, and increased the life span of mice, even when they were treated with lower doses of chemotherapy.

The researchers warn that although these preclinical results are promising, further studies are required to assess whether a similar approach can be applied to human patients.

The article is titled, "TAp73 is a marker of glutamine addiction in medulloblastoma."