[extropy-chat] New way to lock DNA-slicing enzyme onto chromosomes could lead to novel anti-cancer drugs

Alejandro Dubrovsky alito at organicrobot.com
Sun Dec 14 09:20:54 UTC 2003


On Sun, 2003-12-14 at 18:55, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote:
> From EurekAlert: Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research
> Hospital have discovered a new way that an enzyme crucial to the
> cell's ability to decode genes and duplicate chromosomes can be turned
> into a poison inside cancer cells. The discovery is an important step
> toward designing a new class of anti-cancer drugs. Such drugs might be
> given with an existing agent that also targets this enzyme, creating a
> one-two punch against both solid tumors and leukemia, according to the
> researchers. 
> The enzyme, called Topoisomerase 1 (Top 1), is crucial to the cell's
> ability to unwind the DNA of chromosomes and separate the two strands
> making up a giant molecule. This activity permits the cell to
> transcribe (decode) specific genes or to make a copy of the entire
> chromosome. Duplication of chromosomes is critical to the process
> called mitosis, or cell division. After the cell divides, each
> daughter cell receives a copy of the entire set of duplicated
> chromosomes. Modifying Top 1 so it became locked onto the DNA molecule
> was enough to cause cell death. 
> This differs from the way a currently used anti-cancer drug,
> camptothecin (CPT), works. CPT works only during the part of the
> cell's life cycle called S phase, when the cell synthesizes duplicate
> chromosomes. Because the new strategy can work whether the cell is in
> S phase or just decoding a single gene, a drug based on this approach
> could be particularly versatile.
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
yes, very versatile, it would kill everything in its path.  Ways to kill
cells don't seem to be in short supply, ways to only kill cancer cells
are, and in that sense CPT sounds like a better idea.
This is another interesting basic research find (blocking Top1 kills the
cell) desperately looking for a popular press release.

Disclaimer:  I've got no fucking clue about biochem and i haven't even
read the paper, just the link, so ignore above and reclaim your minute
of life.
alejandro





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