The new mechanism of a potential new anticancer drug (ADI-PEG20)

The researchers from the University of California, Davis, Taipei Medical University and the National Institutes of Health have discovered a potential new mechanism of a cancer killing drug. The drug, named ADI-PEG20, is now in clinical research stage. This study revealed the mechanisms of how ADI-PEG20 killed tumor cells through depriving arginine-a crucial amino acid for cell survival.

The traditional cancer treatments, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, often have side effects. By contrast, an emerging mild cancer treatment strategy is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding them with the foods they need to multiply and ultimately leading to their death.

ADI-PEG20, developed by San Diego Polaris Pharmaceuticals, functions easier to sarcoma and bladder carcinoma which have insufficient Argininosuccinic acid synthetase (Ass) activity. The arginine controlled by ASS is necessary in the cell growth and function. So, the cancer cells with the deficiency of ASS have to obtain arginine from the blood circulation to maintain the survival state. However, ADI-PEG can damage the arginine in blood circulating, thereby blocking the growth of cancer cells.

The new study observed that ADI-PEG20 could kill tumor cells through arginine starvation and accompanying mitochondrial dysfunction, reactive oxygen species (Ros) production and chromatophagy, etc.

Currently, researchers are recruiting advanced prostate cancer patients in order to study ADI-PEG20 combined with other therapy, for the treatment of cancer.

In recent years, the importance of epigenetic has been widely recognized by the scientific community, the related research of epigenetic has become the forefront of life sciences. The epigenetic technologies are now developing rapidly. It is expected to acquire some crucial breakthrough over the next ten years and will drive the next round of major developments in the life sciences.

In genetics, epigenetics is mostly the study of heritable changes that are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence. The main epigenetic mechanisms include DNA methylation, histone modifications, and other non-coding RNAs, which are also the hotspots of epigenetic researches.

Recently, GEN (http://www.genengnews.com/) published a report on the epigenetic markers and clinical trials by Enal Razvi, Ph.D and Gary Oosta, Ph.D. In this report, the authors pointed out that about 50% of epigenetic clinical trials are currently concentrated in the field of cancers. In the meanwhile, the FDA-approved drugs based on epigenetic are targeting a variety of tumors. Among the 100 open clinical trials centered on the epigenetic research, about 25 are about epigenetic markers, 46 is about cancer: six of which are involved in breast cancer, three are involved in colon cancer, one involved in prostate cancer, eight involved in various forms of lung cancers, two involved in ovarian cancer. In addition to cancer research, central nervous system disease is another area, which gaining more and more interest in epigenetic research area.

Numerologist Warda is hooked on OG-L002 fishing, collecting. And lastly her encouragement comes from socializing along with her companions.