Brazilian tarantula and Japanese horseshoe crab could be key in fighting certain types of skin cancer.
Australian researchers found that peptides isolated from two animals killed drug-resistant melanoma cells, according to a new study.
Researchers at the Translational Research Institute (TRI) in Brisbane found that the peptides “kill metastatic melanoma cells that are sensitive, tolerant or resistant to [the cancer drug] dabrafenib,” says a study published in Pharmacological Research on December 16.
“Nature designed these peptides to fight bacterial infection by targeting bacterial cell membranes. We modified the peptides and applied them to cancer cells to act in a similar way and attack the cancer cell membrane without affecting non-cancerous cells,” said Professor Sonia Henriques from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
Image of melanoma.
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But the peptides didn’t just kill “highly proliferative [rapidly growing] melanoma cells,” Henriques continued. “They also kill dormant cells and those that have acquired resistance.”
She explained that because of the speed at which the animal peptides work to kill melanoma, the cancer cells did not “recompose their cell membrane or develop resistance to peptide treatment.”
“This is potentially significant because a major problem in treating cancer patients is that they eventually develop resistance to their current therapy,” she said.
The study was conducted in mice, and the researchers said they are about five years of research away from clinical trials in humans.
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(left) Brazilian tarantula; (Right) Japanese horseshoe crab.
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As the first author of the study, dr. Aurelie Benfield, from QUT’s School of Biomedical Sciences, said this could be “the start of a big new future for therapeutic peptides.”
“Peptides are therefore well suited as templates for designing new therapeutic strategies against cancer,” the study says, but as Benfield pointed out, it all comes down to money: “If we can get funding and interest from industry,” she said, “Hopefully together we can speed things up very quickly.”
Melanoma is “one of the more well-known types of skin cancer”, Very good health reports. “In the US, there are about 106,000 cases a year and about 7,100 people die from it a year.”
Although it is not the most common type of skin cancer, the American Academy of Dermatology reports that “melanoma rates in the United States have been rising rapidly” in recent years.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education