Small-molecule drug drives cancer cells to suicide

[Julius Skrrvin]

Small-molecule drug drives cancer cells to suicide : Nature News & Comment

Cancer researchers have pinned down a molecule that can kick-start the body’s own tumour-destroying systems, triggering cell death in cancerous but not healthy tissue in mice.

The molecule, TIC10, activates the gene for a protein called TRAIL (tumour-necrosis-factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand), which has long been a target for cancer researchers looking for drugs that would avoid the debilitating effects of conventional therapies.

“TRAIL is a part of our immune system: all of us with functional immune systems use this molecule to keep tumours from forming or spreading, so boosting this will not be as toxic as chemotherapy,” says Wafik El-Deiry, an oncologist at Pennsylvania State University in Hershey and lead author of the study, which is published today in Science Translational Medicine1.
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Experiments showed that TIC10 had potent effects against a variety of tumours, including breast, lymphatic, colon and lung cancer. It was especially effective at triggering cell suicide in glioblastoma, a kind of brain tumour that is notoriously difficult to treat2. Mice with glioblastomas that were treated with TIC10 and bevacizumab — a drug used against diseases including brain tumours, and sold under the name Avastin — survived three times as long as untreated mice. However, they survived only 6% longer than mice treated with bevacizumab alone.
Quick and collaborative

El-Deiry says that TIC10 is so effective because it is much smaller than proteins that have previously been tested as TRAIL-based drugs. The molecule is so compact that it can cross the blood–brain barrier, which separates the main circulatory system from the brain. This barrier normally acts to prevent hazardous agents such as microbes from infecting the brain, but can also thwart anti-cancer drugs by keeping them out. “We didn’t actually anticipate that this molecule would be able to treat brain tumours — that was a pleasant surprise,” says El-Deiry.

Furthermore, it seems that TIC10 activates the TRAIL gene not only in cancerous cells, but also in healthy ones. This gives it enormous potential to create a 'bystander effect', in which apoptosis — or cell death — is induced in cancer cells immediately next to healthy ones. Healthy cells are also stimulated to increase the amount of TRAIL receptors on their cell surface. These receptors can then bind to the adjacent cancerous cells, triggering their demise. “It’s almost like TRAIL-plus — it does so much more,” says El-Deiry.
Tough TRAIL

This is by no means the only mechanism thought to trigger cell death in cancer. In particular, cancer researchers have been developing a number of drugs, including TRAIL-based therapeutics, that work by activating the cellular messenger tumour protein 53 (p53). But p53-based methods are not always effective, says El-Deiry. "Most tumours have dysfunctional p53, so in order to develop new therapeutics for cancer, one needs them to be effective in tumours with mutated p53,” he explains. His team's approach bypasses p53 entirely.

Although the study was limited to mice, the team is confident that a similar approach would work in humans. Other researchers are sceptical, in part because TRAIL-based strategies have not lived up to past hype.

The potential for TRAIL to usher in a new age in cancer therapy was first identified in the mid-1990s3. However, although early clinical trials for TRAIL-based therapies showed little toxicity, they were not very successful at treating cancer, says Andrew Thorburn, an oncologist at the University of Colorado Denver, who co-authored a review on the subject last year4. “All the large clinical trials found no significant survival benefit to adding TRAIL-based therapeutics to standard treatments,” he ads. Many large biomedical research groups have shelved their TRAIL-based drugs.

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

potential cancer pill brehs.

pharma is gonna off this

 

[Mr. Somebody]

Prepares to never hear about this again.

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

Prepares to never hear about this again.

that's a possibility, but it would be a nice additive to existing treatments, and it is very cool that it is cancer specific.

 

[Serious]

 

[Mr. Somebody]

that's a possibility, but it would be a nice additive to existing treatments, and it is very cool that it is cancer specific.

Great, give you enough medication to almost be cured. Then it grows back again and you have to take the meds again. 20 years later, you broke. Its so demonic, friend.

 

[BlvdBrawler]

Please please please please please let this happen....

 

[bouncy]

That sounds good but virus's, and bacteria, might find a way to go around it, just like bacteria have found ways to go around anti-bacterial medications, and are now resistant to a lot of them. If they do that then cancer may get WORSE for a lot of people. A lot of tumors are caused by a viral or a bacterial infection.

 

[Slaimon Khan Shah]

I HOPE THIS IS GOOD NEWS.

 

[MouseTeeth]

Nice now I don't have to quit

 

[Slaimon Khan Shah]

Nice now I don't have to quit

I ENCOURAGE YOU TO QUIT SMOKING. BASICALLY I ENCOURAGE YOU TO NOT COMMIT SUICIDE.

 

[newworldafro]

Prepares to never hear about this again.

I think there is a term for this .......................................... "the cure bushes"

 

[Mr. Somebody]

I think there is a term for this .......................................... "the cure bushes"

Whoever authorizes cure bushes is a demon. Its sad people acknowledge cure bushes exist but are still excited for the remedial treatments that they will be allowed to take as a result of this discovery. Such slaves. Such thank u massa type individuals. Its so demonic, friend.

 

[Ego Noir]

With this cure now we can get rid of the toxic effects of chemotherapy..

if u think they're going to give up the hundreds of thousands of dollars, yearly, PER PATIENT, for chemotherapy. Lets not even factor in the pain medications for it. Theres blue-blood money lust out here friends