Tumor organoids for precision medicine
Teams from the Centre Baclesse and the Université de Caen Normandie(Inserm U1086 Anticipe, Plateforme ORGAPRED and Plateforme Virtual'His de l'Unité de Service Universitaire PLATON, Laboratoire de Biologie et Génétique du Cancer, Laboratoire d'Anatomie Pathologique, Département de Chirurgie, Clinical Research Unit), in collaboration with their national research partners, have just published an innovative study in an international scientific journal on the use of patient-derived tumor organoids to better personalize the treatment of ovarian cancers. This article, which brings together numerous Centre Baclesse researchers and clinicians working in 7 different departments/structures, illustrates our strong commitment and expertise in the field of therapeutic innovation.
Tumoroids: towards a laboratory test for a "tailor-made" treatment
These cancers, which represent the second leading cause of death among gynecological cancers worldwide, remain difficult to treat due to their often late diagnosis and resistance to chemotherapy. The study demonstrates that patient-derived tumor organoids faithfully reproduce the characteristics of the original tumors, enabling the efficacy of treatments to be tested directly on personalized models. In particular, the results show that these organoids can predict tumor sensitivity to certain drugs, such as PARP inhibitors, and help identify patients likely to benefit from this targeted therapy.
FOCUS on the PARP protein
The PARP protein (for Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase) plays a central role in DNA repair: it acts as a "cellular mechanic" responsible for repairing certain breaks in the genetic material. When blocked by a drug called a PARP inhibitor, normal cells are able to compensate for the loss of its activity by setting up another DNA repair mechanism, homologous recombination. On the other hand, cancer cells that already have a dysfunction of this mechanism become incapable of effectively repairing their DNA, and eventually die. This therapeutic strategy therefore exploits a specific weakness of certain tumour cells. In this study, the interest of patient-derived tumor organoids is to enable researchers to test this sensitivity directly on laboratory-grown mini-tumors, in order to identify patients who will actually benefit from treatment with PARP inhibitors.
Real hope for patients' future
These results represent an important step towards better tailoring treatments to the biological characteristics of each ovarian cancer. By demonstrating the ability of tumor organoids to faithfully reproduce patient response to therapy, this study reinforces the value of these models as complementary tools in therapeutic decision-making. However, to fully confirm their predictive potential and validate their integration into clinical practice, further work is underway to miniaturize these tests and reduce their turnaround time to make them compatible with patient management times. Validation in a larger-scale clinical trial will then be possible.
