A new cancer therapy developed by researchers at Purdue Universityattacks tumors by tricking cells cancerous so that absorb a piece of ARN It naturally blocks cell division. As published today in Oncogenethe tumors treated with this new therapy did not increase in size during the 21 days of the study, while the untreated ones tripled in size during the same period of time.
Cancer can start almost anywhere in the human body. It is characterized by cells that divide uncontrollably and may be able to ignore signals to die or stop dividing, and even evade the immune system. The therapy, tested in mouse modelscombines a delivery system that targets cancer cells with a specially modified version of microRNA-34aa molecule that acts “like the brakes on a car,” regulating the speed of cell division, even stopping it, says Andrea Kasinski, author and associate professor of biological sciences at Purdue University.
In addition to slowing or reversing tumor growth, microRNA-34a significantly suppressed the activity of at least three genes (MET, CD44, and AXL) characterized by being behind tumor development and resistance to other therapies, for at least 120 hours. The results indicate that the patent-pending therapy, the latest version in more than 15 years of work targeting microRNA to destroy cancer, could be effective alone and in combination with existing drugs when used against cancers that have developed resistance. to current therapies.
“When we got the data, I was surprised. I’m sure that this approach is better than current standard treatment and that there are patients who would benefit from it,” said Kasinski, a fellow at the Purdue Institute for Cancer Research.
It is a short double stranded ribonucleic acid, a chain of ribonucleic acids linked like the teeth of a zipper along a sugar-phosphate chain. The two strands of the microRNA are unevenly linked: one strand acts to guide a protein complex to its workplace in the cell while the other strand is destroyed. In healthy cells, microRNA-34a is abundant, but its presence is dramatically reduced in many cancer cells.