• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Monday, October 27, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

Timing of chemo affects inflammation, mice study suggests

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
January 24, 2017
in Science News
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The time of day that breast cancer chemotherapy drugs are given affects the amount of damaging inflammation in the body, a new study in mice suggests.

That's important because inflammation, particularly in the brain, is believed to contribute to many of the neurological side effects of chemotherapy in humans, such as depression, anxiety and short-term memory loss.

"Timing of drug administration can have a big effect on inflammation, and that may potentially affect a wide variety of harmful side effects," said Courtney DeVries, co-author of the study and professor of neuroscience at The Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center.

But the results also showed an important complicating factor: The inflammatory effects were opposite in the brain versus the spleen depending on the time the drugs were given.

"The spleen and the brain were out of phase. When inflammation was high in one, it was low in the other," said co-author Randy Nelson, also a professor of neuroscience at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center.

The study was published today in the journal Scientific Reports.

These results mark another step in how scientists understand cancer chronotherapy — using the body's daily circadian rhythms to time treatments so they are most effective and have the fewest side effects.

"I think we know enough about circadian rhythms in terms of physiology that we can start translating these findings into medical research and practice in humans," Nelson said.

The research team studied the drugs cyclophosphamide and doxorubicin, a common treatment for breast cancer, in female mice. The mice did not have tumors because this study was designed just to look at the inflammatory response to the drugs.

The mice were injected with the drugs two hours after daylight (which is their inactive period) or two hours after lights were turned off (their active period).

Researchers collected tissue and checked for signs of inflammation in the spleen, an important immune system organ. The also looked at two sites in the brain: the hypothalamus and the hippocampus. Tissue was collected at 1, 3, 9 or 24 hours after the injection.

Results showed that injecting mice with the chemotherapy drugs in their inactive phase (daylight) increased the expression of genes that promoted inflammation within the spleen. The researchers found increased production of two toxic drug metabolites, products of the chemo drugs. These metabolites are related to inflammation and one of them, doxorubicinol, causes heart damage in some patients.

"The timing of when patients receive drugs has the potential to reduce serious side effects," DeVries said.

The effect was different for mice that received the drugs two hours after the lights were out. In these mice, inflammation measured in the spleen was much lower than the mice injected during the day.

The pattern was reversed in the brain, however. Mice injected at night had increases in pro-inflammatory gene expression, but showed less evidence of inflammation when injected during the day.

The difference in inflammation response between the brain and the rest of the body needs to be better appreciated by physicians, Nelson said.

"Many times physicians measure markers of inflammation in the blood and assume that is what is happening in the brain, but we found that just the opposite is happening," he said.

Why is there a difference between how the brain and spleen are reacting to these chemotherapy drugs?

Other research has shown that the clock genes in the brain are out of sync with those in other organs. Expression of these clock genes may affect how the drugs are processed, or metabolized, in the body, Nelson said.

These findings can't tell us the best time to administer chemotherapy drugs in humans, DeVries said of the new study.

"But it does demonstrate that time of day is an important factor that needs to be considered in when the drugs are given," she said.

Nelson noted that this study only looked at administering drugs at two time points.

"There may be a sweet spot that maximizes the efficacy of the drugs and minimizes the side effects. We don't know that yet."

###

Other members of the research team, all from Ohio State, were Jeremy Borniger, William Walker, Monica Gaudier-Diaz, Curtis Stegman, Ning Zhang and Jennifer Hollyfield.

Contact: Courtney DeVries, 614-292-7353; [email protected]

Randy Nelson, 614-688-8327; [email protected]

Media Contact

Jeff Grabmeier
[email protected]
614-292-8457
@osuresearch

http://news.osu.edu

############

Story Source: Materials provided by Scienmag

Share12Tweet7Share2ShareShareShare1

Related Posts

Detecting Cocaine Exposure in Children via Hair Analysis

October 27, 2025

Pbk Boosts Myoblast Differentiation and Muscle Regeneration

October 27, 2025

Enhancing Pediatric Telemedicine and Medication Delivery in Haiti

October 27, 2025

Enhancing Student Success: Deep Learning and Fuzzy Features

October 27, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Sperm MicroRNAs: Crucial Mediators of Paternal Exercise Capacity Transmission

    1285 shares
    Share 513 Tweet 321
  • Stinkbug Leg Organ Hosts Symbiotic Fungi That Protect Eggs from Parasitic Wasps

    310 shares
    Share 124 Tweet 78
  • ESMO 2025: mRNA COVID Vaccines Enhance Efficacy of Cancer Immunotherapy

    196 shares
    Share 78 Tweet 49
  • New Study Suggests ALS and MS May Stem from Common Environmental Factor

    134 shares
    Share 54 Tweet 34

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Detecting Cocaine Exposure in Children via Hair Analysis

Pbk Boosts Myoblast Differentiation and Muscle Regeneration

Enhancing Pediatric Telemedicine and Medication Delivery in Haiti

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 67 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.