A technology has been introduced to alleviate cancer cachexia—a complication characterized by rapid weight and muscle loss in cancer patients—using natural products and gut microbiota.

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced on August 16 that a joint research team led by Senior Researcher Kim Myung-seok and Principal Researcher Lee Choong-goo at the Natural Product Informatics Research Center has identified a natural product candidate and its mechanism of action that can ameliorate cancer cachexia by regulating the gut microbial ecosystem.

Cancer cachexia is known to affect up to 80% of cancer patients and is associated with 20% of cancer-related deaths, yet there are currently no drugs available to fundamentally treat it.

The research team analyzed a library of approximately 4,000 natural products and confirmed that micheliolide (MCL) exhibits an effect in improving cancer cachexia.

MCL is a compound derived from plants and other natural sources, possessing functions such as suppressing inflammatory responses in the body and regulating protein modification.

When MCL was administered to animal models of colorectal and pancreatic cancer, muscle mass increased by 34% and muscle strength by 31% without affecting tumor size.

Furthermore, MCL was found to restore immune cell functions that had been degraded by cancer and suppress the secretion of inflammatory cytokines, thereby reducing the inflammatory responses that induce muscle breakdown.

The research team also discovered that these effects are related to the gut microbiota.

In a mouse model treated with antibiotics that depleted gut microbes, the effects of MCL did not appear, and analysis revealed that MCL selectively increases the gut beneficial bacterium Phocaeicola vulgatus.

In addition, through the analysis of metabolites produced by this bacterial strain, the research team newly identified 11 cyclic peptides involved in promoting muscle synthesis and inhibiting inflammatory responses.

Principal Researcher Lee stated, "This is an achievement that demonstrates the potential for treating cancer cachexia based on gut microbiota and immune regulation," adding, "We will continue follow-up research so that this can lead to the development of microbiome-based therapeutics."

The results of this study were published in the international journal Microbiome on May 5.

(Photo: Provided by KIST, Yonhap News)