A team at the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) has discovered a novel orally available small molecule, DBPR728, that can cut off the nutrient supply for cancer cell growth, which can serve as a new targeted therapy drug.
The research team consists of scientists from the NHRI’s Institute of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Research, including Chi Ya-hui (紀雅惠), Yeh Teng-kuang (葉燈光), Chen Chiung-tong (陳炯東) and Chang Chun-ping (張竣評).
Chi told a news conference at the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Taipei yesterday that the occurrence of cancer is often caused by genetic aberrations that lead to uncontrolled cell proliferation.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
An “oncogene” is a gene that has the potential to transform normal cells into cancerous ones through genetic aberrations — including mutation, fusion and amplification, she said.
Genetic amplification refers to an increase in the number of copies of the same gene, and studies have suggested that approximately 28 percent of cancers exhibit Myelocytomatosis (MYC) oncogene amplification, Chi said, adding that they include lung cancer, breast cancer, liver cancer and prostate cancer, as well as several other types.
For cancer cells to grow, the MYC oncoprotein functions as a transcription factor, facilitating the production of enzymes required for glycolysis (the process of breaking down glucose to produce energy), she said.
Therefore, MYC overexpression (too many copies of the MYC oncoprotein) allows cancer cells to metabolize energy in low-oxygen conditions, leading to uncontrolled cell growth and high post-operative recurrence rates, ultimately reducing overall patient survival rates, she said.
However, while there are many therapies that target specific genetic mutations in cancer cells, there are still challenges in developing drugs that target several oncogenes and their cancer-driving proteins, such as the MYC oncogene, due to the intrinsic properties of its proteins, Chi said.
In an effort to suppress MYC overexpression, Chi said the team tried to exploit its “good friend,” the enzyme Aurora kinase A, which stabilizes the MYC protein, by designing small molecules that disrupt the interaction between the two proteins, leading to MYC protein degradation.
They used the molecule DBPR728 to create an inactive oral drug that is stable in the gastrointestinal tract and can be bioconverted to become active when it reaches tumor cells, she said.
Chi said administering the oral drug to mice which have tumor cells with MYC genetic amplification and overexpression showed that the drug to can efficiently induce MYC reduction and cell apoptosis (the process of programmed cell death) in just 10 days.
The drug has obtained a patent in Taiwan and the team is applying for patents in other nations, and hopefully after it passes preclinical toxicity studies and clinical trials, it can be produced as a targeted drug for cancer treatment, she said.
The team’s findings were published in the June issue of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, a leading journal published by the American Association for Cancer Research.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS