2023-06-27 17:00:47
Published in the magazine «Chemical Science», the proof-of-concept study showed that tumors in mice grew almost three times less and the survival was 100% after a single injection of a compound designed to emit small amounts of alpha radiation from inside cancer cells, killing them but sparing healthy tissue.
Side effects of standard chemotherapy and radiation therapy can be devastatingand the eradication of all cancer cells is not guaranteed, especially when the cancer has already metastasized and spread throughout the body.
That’s why the goal of most current research is to find a way to specifically target cancer cells so that treatments only affect tumors.
Although some targeted treatments exist, they cannot be applied to all types of cancer. “One of the biggest advantages of our new method,” says Katsunori Tanaka, “is that it can be used to treat many types of cancer without the need for specific vectors, such as antibodies or peptides».
The new technique is based on the basic chemistry and in the fact that a compound called acrolein accumulates in cancer cells.
A few years ago, Tanaka’s team used a similar technique to detect individual breast cancer cells. They attached a fluorescent compound to a specific type of azide, an organic molecule with a cluster of three nitrogen (N3) atoms at the end. When azide and acrolein are inside a cancer cell, they react and the fluorescent compound attaches to the internal structures of the cell.. Since acrolein is almost absent in healthy cells, this technique acted as a probe to illuminate cancer cells in the body.
In the new work, rather than just detecting cancer cells, the team focused on destroy them.
The logic was quite simple, the researchers write.
Instead of attaching the azide to a fluorescent compound, they attached it to something that can kill a cell without harming surrounding cells. They decided to work with astatine-211a radionuclide that emits a small amount of radiation in the form of an alpha particle when it decays.
Compared to other forms of radiation therapy, alpha particles are slightly deadlier, but they can only travel one-twentieth of a millimeter and can be stopped by a piece of paper. In theory, when astatin-211 anchors inside a cancer cell, the emitted alpha particles should damage the cancer cell, but not much further.
Tumors in mice grew almost three times less and survival was 100% after a single injection
Once the team figured out the best way to attach astatin-211 to the azide probe, they were able to run a proof-of-concept experiment to test their theory. They implanted human lung tumor cells into mice and tested the treatment under three conditions: simply injecting astatin-211 into the tumor, injecting the astatin-211-azide probe into the tumor, and injecting the astatin-211-azide probe into the torrent. sanguine.
The researchers then found that without the azide probe, the tumors continued to grow and the mice did not survive. As expected, when the azide probe was used, the tumors grew almost three times less and many more mice survived: 100% when injected into the tumor and 80% when injected into the blood.
“We found that a single injection into the tumor with only 70 kBq of radioactivity was extremely effective in targeting and killing tumor cells,” says Tanaka.
“Even by injecting the treatment compound into the bloodstream, we were able to achieve similar results. This means that we can use this method to treat very early stage cancers even if we don’t know where the tumor is,” he adds.
The fluorescent probe version of this technique is already being tested. in clinical trials as a way to visualize/diagnose cancer at the level cell phone.
The next step is to find a partner and start clinical trials with this new method of treating cancer in humans.
#generic #treatment #attacks #multiple #types #cancer