# A Protein Called ANO6 Feeds Pancreatic Tumors. Blocking It Slowed Them.

- Link: https://www.o0justjoseph0o.com/a-protein-called-ano6-feeds-pancreatic-tumors-blocking-it-slowed-them/
- Published: 2026-11-12T04:34:54+05:00
- Author: admin

Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have identified how pancreatic tumors feed
themselves through scar tissue — and a protein that could be blocked to starve them.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, the most common form of the disease, surrounds
itself with cancer-associated fibroblasts: cells that build connective tissue. The
resulting collagen compresses blood vessels, cutting the tumor’s blood supply. Somehow
the cancer cells kept growing anyway. The study, published in Nature Cancer, explains
one mechanism.

The fibroblasts acquire cholesterol from the bloodstream and hand it directly to
cancer cells through a process called trogocytosis — one cell taking small pieces
of another’s membrane during contact. The transfer depends on a protein called anoctamin
6, or ANO6, which prepares the fibroblast membrane for the exchange.

“Cancer-associated fibroblasts are not passive bystanders,” said co-senior author
Igor Astsaturov. “They actively support tumor growth by transferring lipids to cancer
cells.”

When researchers reduced or eliminated ANO6 in fibroblasts, the cells became far
less effective at supporting cancer cell survival, and tumors in mouse models grew
substantially more slowly. The same process also appeared to blunt the immune response:
cytotoxic T lymphocytes, the immune cells that kill cancer cells, were hindered 
by the lipid transfer.

The finding is early — mouse and laboratory models, not patients — but it identifies
a target that acts on both the tumor’s supply line and the immune system’s ability
to reach it.

_Source: ScienceDaily/SciTechDaily report of the Nature Cancer study; Fox Chase 
Cancer Center, Oct. 30, 2026. Photo: Shixart1985, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Illustrative._