Modified cisplatin drug kills cancer resistant to regular cisplatin and at much lower and less toxic doses
01 Nov '13 14:091 editThis sounds to me like a very promising sounding breakthrough in improving cancer treatment. If this works out, it will be fantastic! I just hope that, unlike so many promising sounding research in cancer treatment, this will not prove to be just yet another one of those so many disappointments that leads nowhere.
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-chemists-cancer-cells-resistant-chemotherapy.html
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Chemists develop new way to kill cancer cells resistant to the chemotherapy drug cisplatin
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…A new study from MIT and the University of Toronto offers a possible way to overcome that resistance. The researchers found that when cisplatin was delivered to cellular structures called mitochondria. DNA in this organelle was damaged, leading to cancer cell death. Moreover, the mitochondrial-targeted drug could overcome cisplatin resistance.
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...Mitochondria-targeting cisplatin might also be effective at lower doses than regular cisplatin, helping to avoid some of the severe side effects often seen with the drug,
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…Cisplatin, which contains the metal platinum, was approved to treat ovarian and testicular tumors in 1978 and is now used for many other cancers, including lung and bladder. The drug forms crosslinks in DNA, creating blockages that interfere with a cell's ability to read or replicate its genome. If enough of these blockages form, the cell undergoes a type of programmed cell suicide called apoptosis.
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...To do that, they developed a new way to tag the drug with a protein fragment developed in Kelley's lab that can enter the cell and accumulate in mitochondria.
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...they developed a new way to tag the drug with a protein fragment developed in Kelley's lab that can enter the cell and accumulate in mitochondria.
The mitochondrial-targeted version of the drug killed cancer cells and cisplatin-resistant cells with the same success rate. With regular cisplatin, killing resistant cells requires about 10 times the amount of drug needed to kill the same number of nonresistant cells.
…
...The researchers also showed that the cells were dying through apoptosis, and not some less-controlled form of cell death.
"There are other ways for a cell to die besides apoptosis. You want a therapeutic agent to induce programmed cell death because it is a more efficient process. With forms of nonprogrammed cell death, cellular toxins can spread, leading to inflammation and other deleterious consequences."
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http://phys.org/news/2013-11-chemists-cancer-cells-resistant-chemotherapy.html
“...
Chemists develop new way to kill cancer cells resistant to the chemotherapy drug cisplatin
….
…A new study from MIT and the University of Toronto offers a possible way to overcome that resistance. The researchers found that when cisplatin was delivered to cellular structures called mitochondria. DNA in this organelle was damaged, leading to cancer cell death. Moreover, the mitochondrial-targeted drug could overcome cisplatin resistance.
….
...Mitochondria-targeting cisplatin might also be effective at lower doses than regular cisplatin, helping to avoid some of the severe side effects often seen with the drug,
…
…Cisplatin, which contains the metal platinum, was approved to treat ovarian and testicular tumors in 1978 and is now used for many other cancers, including lung and bladder. The drug forms crosslinks in DNA, creating blockages that interfere with a cell's ability to read or replicate its genome. If enough of these blockages form, the cell undergoes a type of programmed cell suicide called apoptosis.
...
...To do that, they developed a new way to tag the drug with a protein fragment developed in Kelley's lab that can enter the cell and accumulate in mitochondria.
…
...
...
...they developed a new way to tag the drug with a protein fragment developed in Kelley's lab that can enter the cell and accumulate in mitochondria.
The mitochondrial-targeted version of the drug killed cancer cells and cisplatin-resistant cells with the same success rate. With regular cisplatin, killing resistant cells requires about 10 times the amount of drug needed to kill the same number of nonresistant cells.
…
...The researchers also showed that the cells were dying through apoptosis, and not some less-controlled form of cell death.
"There are other ways for a cell to die besides apoptosis. You want a therapeutic agent to induce programmed cell death because it is a more efficient process. With forms of nonprogrammed cell death, cellular toxins can spread, leading to inflammation and other deleterious consequences."
...”