Establishing Drosophila melanogaster as part of the pre-clinical pipeline for anti-metastatic cancer drug discovery

Why did we fund this project?

This award aims to replace some anti-cancer drug efficacy studies in mice by introducing a pre-screening stage in Drosophila.

Approximately three-quarters of deaths from colorectal cancer occur due to metastasis. Current treatment options can only slow metastatic growth or relieve symptoms. Metastasis is a complex process involving multiple cell types and the migration of cells to distant sites, making it difficult to model in vitro. As a result, new treatments are typically studied in mice. Cells from patients or cell lines are injected into the animal to determine where secondary tumours form. The studies require large groups of mice as animals are culled at specific time points to assess treatment efficacy in terms of the extent of cancer cell colonisation. Drosophila has been used extensively in some areas of cancer research for example, to identify cancer-related genes and pathways in colorectal cancer, providing a partial replacement for the use of vertebrates. Its use however has been limited by the lack of metastasis.

Dr Kyra Campbell has recently developed a transgenic Drosophila model, published in Nature Communications¹, where cancer cells invade the gut wall and migrate out into the body. She will now work with Professor Steven Goossens and Professor Geert Berx, to test and validate the Drosophila model as a screening tool for identifying compounds that slow or prevent metastasis in order to limit to the most efficacious those that are progressed to studying in mice.