WASHINGTON, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A study published on Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine identified a new compound that could block the spread of pancreatic and other cancers in the animal model.

The team led by researchers with U.S. Northwestern University revealed that mice treated with the compound which they named metarrestin showed fewer tumors and lived longer than mice that did not receive the treatment.

"There is no single approved drug specifically aimed at treating metastasis," said the paper's co-author Juan Marugan with the National Institute of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences Chemical Genomics Center. "Our results show metarrestin is a very promising agent that we should continue to investigate against metastasis."

Metarrestin could break down a component of cancer cells called the perinucleolar compartment (PNC), according to the study.

The paper's co-author Huang Sui and her colleagues at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine showed early on that the more cancer cells with PNCs in a tumor, the more likely it would spread, so they suggested that reducing PNCs might lead to less cancer progression and possibly better outcomes in patients.

Huang's team evaluated more than 140,000 compounds for their potential effectiveness in eliminating PNCs in cells in advanced cancer and then identified this compound that could effectively break down PNCs in advanced prostate cancer cells.

The researchers found that the compound prevented the further spread of pancreatic cancer in the mice model by disrupting the protein-making machinery of cancer cells.

The scientists plan to file an Investigational New Drug (IND) application in the autumn with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since the FDA's approval is necessary before a candidate drug can be tested on patients.