Cancer suicide switch (8/28/2006)

Cancer Researchers from the University of Illinois created a synthetic molecule which caused cancer cells to self-destruct. All cells in the body have a suicide-switch, but unlike healthy cells, cancerous cells seem to ignore the signals that tell a cell to implode.

All cells contain a protein called procaspase-3, which is able to turn into caspase-3 - an enzyme that kills the cell. For some reason, in a cancerous cell caspase-3 isn't generated.

The researchers observed 20,000 structurally different synthetic compounds to see if any could trigger procaspase-3 to develop into caspase-3. They found the molecule PAC-1 did trigger the transformation causing cells to self-destruct in a process called apoptosis.

The more procaspase-3 a cell had, the less of the molecule was needed to cause apoptosis. Because cancer cells, such as colon cancer, leukaemia, skin and liver cancers have very high levels of procaspase-3, the researchers were able to dial back the amount of PAC-1 being delivered so that health cells wouldn't be killed.

Lead researcher Professor Paul Hergenrother has said "This is the first in what could be a host of organic compounds with the ability to directly activate executioner enzymes."

"The potential effectiveness of compounds such as PAC-1 could be predicted in advance, and patients could be selected for treatment based on the amount of procaspase-3 found in their tumour cells."

Post Comments: