How myrtle fights cancer cells

Larissa Melville completed her traineeship in the editorial team of . After studying biology at Ludwig Maximilians University and the Technical University of Munich, she first got to know digital media online at Focus and then decided to learn medical journalism from scratch.

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The inconspicuous myrtle bush has unimagined potential: It not only has an antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effect, but also fights cancer. German researchers have now uncovered the mechanism behind this.

Earlier studies showed that the active ingredient myrtucommulone, which is obtained from the leaves of the myrtle bush, is effective against cancer cells even in relatively low concentrations. It is particularly advantageous that it is extremely selective: in leukemia, for example, it only attacks the cancer cells, but spares all other white blood cells.

With fishing rod and bait

Researchers led by Oliver Werz from the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena have now investigated exactly how the natural substance stops cancer and have also brought important biological processes within a cancer cell to light.

It was known that myrtucommulon attacks the mitochondria, i.e. the energy power stations, of cancer cells. However, tumor cells are particularly dependent on the supply of energy because they multiply very quickly. If there is a disorder, cancer growth quickly comes to a standstill.

The researchers now looked specifically for the protein in the mitochondria of a leukemia cell that interacts with the myrtle active ingredient. “In fact, we just fished for it. To do this, we built a fishing rod with myrtucommulon as bait that only the corresponding protein counterpart can bite into, ”reports Werz.

The chaperone took a bite

With success: after a few analyzes, the protein I was looking for was found - the heat shock protein Hsp60. It belongs to the so-called chaperone proteins, which are named after the French word "chaperonner" for chaperone. An indication of the function of Hsp60. "These special chaperones protect certain mitochondrial proteins and thus prevent their inactivation due to cell stress," explains Werz. "If you switch it off, the entire cell power plant can be paralyzed."

Hsp60 protects two proteins

The researchers were also able to identify which proteins are guarded by the Hsp60: LOPN and LRP30. It was previously known that these two proteins promote tumor growth, but that they are protected by Hsp60 is new. “In this way, we were able to identify the binding partner of the myrtucommulon during the project and thus learned valuable information about the mode of action of this substance. On the other hand, we have gained new knowledge about the biological processes within a tumor cell, ”says Werz.

In future studies, the active ingredient myrtucommulone and its possible use in cancer treatment will now need to be researched further, as well as the importance of the heat shock protein Hps60 in the development and fight against cancer.

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