(Press-News.org) Imagine dropping dish soap into a sink full of greasy water. What happens? As soon as the soap hits the water, the grease recoils—and retreats to the edges of the sink.
Now, what if the sink was a cancer cell, the globs of grease were cancer-promoting proteins and the dish soap was a potential drug? According to new research from the University of Toronto Mississauga, such a drug could force the proteins to the cell's membrane (a.k.a., the edge of the sink)—and make the cancer cell more vulnerable to chemotherapy.
"This is a totally new approach to cancer therapy," says Professor Patrick Gunning of the Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences. "Everything prior to this has targeted functionally relevant binding sites. Our approach inhibits the mobility of cancer-promoting proteins within cells—essentially, it's like molecularly targeted glue."
The "glue" is shaped like a dumbbell: at one end is an anchor that sticks to the membrane, and at the other is a molecule that binds to the cancer-promoting proteins. The anchor is a cholesterol molecule that is well known to chemists for sticking to cell membranes. The protein recognition molecule is fairly picky about what it will bind to, reducing the risk of drug-related side effects.
Gunning says that by sticking the target proteins to the cell membrane, the glue-like substance interferes with how they cause cancer cells to multiply out of control. However, on a normal cell, the new therapy should have little effect.
"We are really excited about the potential for this type of drug," says Gunning, who developed the concept along with Professor Claudiu Gradinaru at U of T Mississauga and Professor James Turkson at the University of Central Florida. "This is ready to move to preclinical studies, and this treatment could slow or stop the explosive growth of cancerous tumours. And for patients, this might reduce the need for really powerful chemotherapy, which can be very hard to tolerate."
###
The study appears on the cover of the latest issue of the journal Angewandte Chemie.
*Images available upon request
Molecular glue sticks it to cancer
2011-06-23
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
University of Minnesota engineering researchers discover source for generating 'green' electricity
2011-06-23
University of Minnesota engineering researchers in the College of Science and Engineering have recently discovered a new alloy material that converts heat directly into electricity. This revolutionary energy conversion method is in the early stages of development, but it could have wide-sweeping impact on creating environmentally friendly electricity from waste heat sources.
Researchers say the material could potentially be used to capture waste heat from a car's exhaust that would heat the material and produce electricity for charging the battery in a hybrid car. Other ...
Positive results for unprotected left main coronary artery PCI with drug-eluting stents
2011-06-23
Patients with normal left ventricular function who undergo elective unprotected left main coronary artery (ULMCA) percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with drug-eluting stents (DES) had favorable outcomes according to new research. Results of the multicenter, retrospective study are reported in the June issue of Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI).
For patients with ULMCA disease, coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), known commonly ...
Gold nanoparticles help earlier diagnosis of liver cancer
2011-06-23
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common cancer to strike the liver. More than 500,000 people worldwide, concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, are diagnosed with it yearly. Most of those afflicted die within six months.
A big obstacle to treatment of liver cancer is the lack of early diagnosis. Current techniques, including ultrasound, CT and MRI scans, spot tumors only when they have grown to about 5 centimeters in diameter. By that time, the cancer is especially aggressive, resisting chemotherapy and difficult ...
Plant growth rate, stem length unaffected by rice hull, peat substrate
2011-06-23
WEST LAFAYETTE, IN—Plant growth retardants, or PGRs, are used in greenhouse operations to produce uniform, compact, and marketable plants. Although PGRs can be applied using a variety of methods, most common applications are foliar sprays or substrate "drenches". Research has shown that drenches provide more uniform results and increase the duration of effectiveness compared with sprays, but the efficacy of drenches can be affected by factors such as the amount of solution applied and the substrate components used.
Organic components such as parboiled rice hulls are becoming ...
Pest preferences for cranberry cultivars determined
2011-06-23
EAST WAREHAM, MA—Cranberry is an important commercial crop in states such as Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Washington, and Oregon. Insects and disease can pose serious problems for growers trying to realize profits in heavy cranberry production regions. Since cranberry is a perennial crop, pest damage can have a particularly significant negative impact in the next growing season.
By studying feeding preferences of insects, entomologists have reported that several insects prefer some cranberry cultivars over others. For instance, several insect herbivores have ...
Optimal topdressing applications for athletic fields determined
2011-06-23
EAST LANSING, MI—The practice of "topdressing" athletic fields with sand has been used by turfgrass professionals for years. Topdressing is essential to maintaining safe and healthy turf, and using porous sand allows the turfgrass system to retain the necessary pore space for adequate drainage, even in heavy foot traffic.
While sand-based athletic fields may be preferred by schools and municipalities, conversion to a sand-based system is expensive. Complete renovation is often cost-prohibitive and renders the field temporarily unusable. Because of these drawbacks, complete ...
Angioplasty with stents may be safe in long-term for low-risk heart patients
2011-06-23
Heart bypass surgery is considered the gold standard for most patients with left main coronary artery disease, one of the most serious types of heart disease and one that affects thousands.
But a new UCLA study reports favorable long-term outcomes for lower-risk patients with this condition who underwent angioplasty with medication-coated stents, rather than bypass surgery.
A more minimally invasive procedure than surgery, angioplasty is performed by snaking a tiny wire up through an artery in the groin to the blocked area of the heart. The clogged artery is cleaned ...
Slowing the spread of drug-resistant diseases is goal of new research area
2011-06-23
In the war between drugs and drug-resistant diseases, is the current strategy for medicating patients giving many drug-resistant diseases a big competitive advantage?, asks a research paper that will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper argues for new research efforts to discover effective ways for managing the evolution and slowing the spread of drug-resistant disease organisms. The ultimate goal of this new research effort is to develop a new science-based model for drug-resistance management that will inform treatment guidelines ...
Salamon & Seaber Tests Confirm that URALCHEM's Methods of Fertilizer Analysis Compare with Those of EC Regulation Methods
2011-06-23
URALCHEM, OJSC announces the successful completion of round robin tests of the company's fertilizer carried out by Salamon & Seaber, one of the leading UK analytical laboratories, with the participation of URALCHEM specialists. The main objective of the product sample analysis was to compare the results obtained by applying the methods used in URALCHEM laboratories for quality control to those used by Salamon & Seaber. The test results have proved that the methods certified by Rosstandard (the Russian Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology) for the ...
Artificial light quality affects herbivore preference for seedlings
2011-06-23
OSAKA, JAPAN—In horticultural production, growers often depend on systems that use artificial light to produce high-quality transplants. Although the systems are efficient, fluorescent lamps can produce plants with shorter shoots than those grown under natural light. Studies have indicated that this reduced shoot elongation is due to the high red:far red ratio of typical commercial fluorescent lamps, which emit little far red irradiation.
In natural environments a reduction in the red:far red (R:FR) ratio resulting from the absorption of red light by neighboring vegetation ...