Natural sugar Mannose has anticancer activity and boosts chemotherapy

Good news! Cancer is history (soon)! This seems to be a new direction in cancer treatment research.

"Research ... has shed new light on the anti-cancer properties of mannose, a sugar that is crucial to many physiological processes in humans and is also known to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. ...

Mannose has already been shown to inhibit the growth of several types of cancer in the lab, but scientists don’t fully understand why this happens.  ... “We wanted to see if there is any relationship between honeybee syndrome and the anti-cancer properties of mannose, which could lead to an entirely new approach to combat cancer.” 

Using genetically engineered human cancer cells from fibrosarcoma—a rare cancer that affects connective tissue—the research team re-created honeybee syndrome and discovered that without the enzyme needed to metabolize mannose, cells replicate slowly and are significantly more vulnerable to chemotherapy.  ..."

From the editor's evaluation and abstract:

"Editor's evaluation

Mannose is toxic to honeybees and some cancer cells that lack sufficient capacity to metabolize this sugar. However, the precise metabolic consequences of impaired mannose metabolism require further understanding. In this important study, Harada et al. provide convincing evidence that an inability to metabolize mannose leads to impaired synthesis of deoxynucleotide triphosphates and DNA, which can be leveraged to sensitize cancer cells to chemotherapy.

Abstract

Mannose has anticancer activity that inhibits cell proliferation and enhances the efficacy of chemotherapy. How mannose exerts its anticancer activity, however, remains poorly understood. Here, using genetically engineered human cancer cells that permit the precise control of mannose metabolic flux, we demonstrate that the large influx of mannose exceeding its metabolic capacity induced metabolic remodeling, leading to the generation of slow-cycling cells with limited deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates (dNTPs). This metabolic remodeling impaired dormant origin firing required to rescue stalled forks by cisplatin, thus exacerbating replication stress. Importantly, pharmacological inhibition of de novo dNTP biosynthesis was sufficient to retard cell cycle progression, sensitize cells to cisplatin, and inhibit dormant origin firing, suggesting dNTP loss-induced genomic instability as a central mechanism for the anticancer activity of mannose."

Natural sugar induces "honeybee syndrome" in cancer to boost chemotherapy

https://www.sbpdiscovery.org/news/sugar-kills-honeybees-it-could-also-help-fight-cancer A new study helps explain the anti-cancer properties of mannose sugar.

Metabolic clogging of mannose triggers dNTP loss and genomic instability in human cancer cells (open access)

Figure 1 The induction of honeybee syndrome suppresses cell proliferation and increases chemosensitivity.