Jackson Lab method may preserve fertility in female cancer patients

Photo Courtesy / Ewelina Bolcun-Filas, Jackson Laboratory A section of a mouse ovary treated with cisplatin, a common chemotherapy drug. Red staining shows the oocytes (cells that develop into eggs). Green shows DNA damage from the drug. Blue is the nucleus of each cell.

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By Staff

Radiation and chemotherapy may increase the risk for infertility in female cancer patients, but a researcher at Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor and her colleague say it may be possible to design better treatments to protect those patients’ ovaries.

Many cancer treatments damage DNA in cancer cells as well as normal tissue such as in the ovaries. Usually, the body gets rid of the damaged cells naturally through a process called “apoptosis,” or programmed cell death.

The current treatments for cancer patients wanting to get pregnant include artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization and surrogacy. But none of them preserve the natural function of the ovaries, which have hormones that regulate women’s health, including reproduction and preventing hypertension and cardiovascular disease, according to Jackson Lab Assistant Professor Ewelina Bolcun-Filas.

Part of the challenge of preventing such damage is that not much is known about how oocytes, or the cells that develop into eggs, are affected by cancer treatments.

Bolcun-Filas and her colleague, Dr. Terri L. Woodward, assistant professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, reviewed current research findings that showed how cancer therapies induce apoptosis in oocytes. They looked at how that body of knowledge could be applied to design better treatments to preserve fertility during cancer therapy.

The researchers published their findings in an opinion article in Cell Press Trends in Cancer, in which they wrote that female cancer patients may be able to retain their fertility during radiation and chemotherapy through new treatments that target the DNA damage response in oocytes, an approach that has been shown to work in certain animals.

“The good news is that more young women are surviving cancer,” Bolcun-Filas said in a statement, “reflecting the advent of better and more efficient [cancer] therapies. A better appreciation of oocyte response to radiation and anticancer drugs will uncover new targets for the development of specialized therapies to prevent ovarian failure.”

The Jackson Laboratory has a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center.

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