Researchers Find how Caffeine Kills Cancer Cells

Cancer cells are highly sensitive to caffeine. However, the stimulant can't really be used to treat cancers, because the body can't tolerate high doses of caffeine. Now, a team of researchers has found a way to tap into caffeine's potency on cancerous cells.

Other studies have shown that caffeine interferes with DNA repair in the cell. In the resent study, researchers looked at the genes that were affected by the presence of the stimulant.

"The problem in using caffeine directly is that the levels you would need to completely inhibit the pathway involved in this DNA repair process would kill you," Shelagh Campbell, co-principal investigator of the study, said in a news release. "We've come at it from a different angle to find ways to take advantage of this caffeine sensitivity."

The researchers found that fruit flies that had a mutant gene called MAGE (which stands for melanoma antigen gene) were normal when they were given a regular diet, but died when fed caffeine. The mutated fruit flies had disfigured eyes.

Analysis of the fruit flies' cells showed that the cells had undergone self-destruction, a process called apoptosis when they were exposed to caffeine.

The study found three genes that are responsible for a protein associated with DNA repair called SMC5/SMC6/MAGE. This protein also regulates cell-division and is absent in the cancerous cells.

"Unless you actually know what it is those proteins are doing in the first place to make a cell a cancer cell instead of a normal cell, it's hard to know what to do with that information," she says. "You need to know which genes and proteins are the really bad actors, how these proteins work and which of them work in a pathway you know something about where you can actually tailor a treatment around that information," Rachel Wevrick, co-author of the study.

The study is published in the journal PLOS One.