Most existing cancer treatments not only attack cancer cells but also adversely impact healthy body cells. The resultant damage to healthy tissues usually triggers side effects that often become severe, necessitating discontinuation of therapy or making quality of life worse. Scientists have been looking for better treatments that only impact malignant cells and leave healthy cells unaffected. A new preclinical study documents one such discovery leveraging the use of a mirror-image molecule.
The study, conducted by a team based at Marburg University and University of Geneva, created a molecule similar to a naturally occurring amino acid referred to as cysteine. It contains sulfur within its composition.
The researchers found that some cancers have a transporter on their surfaces which helps the mirror-image molecule to be absorbed into the cancer cell. Once this amino acid is inside the cell, it blocks the NFS1 enzyme inside cellular mitochondria. The enzyme is vital in creating clusters of iron and sulfur, clusters that are pivotal in RNA and DNA production, maintaining the integrity of genes, and facilitating cellular respiration.
Blocking this vital enzyme therefore results in increased DNA damage, lowered cellular respiration and halting of cellular production cycles. Combined, these effects have the net result of curtailing cellular division and growth.
The researchers made this discovery during lab tests and they went further to test whether similar results could be obtained in living tissues. They used mouse models that were modified to carry the transporter responsible for letting the mirror-image amino acid into the breast cancer cells inside the mice. The team found that the growth of the cancer slowed while healthy tissues remained unharmed.
For mice that hadn’t been modified to let the mirror-image molecule in, the cancer progressed as expected. This showed that only the types of cancer having this transporter could respond to the mirror-image molecule.
This research offers a simple and effective way to combat cancers that have the transporter on their surface, and the treatment could prevent cancer from metastasizing. Preventing metastasis is a big step because cancers become deadly once they spread from the organ where they first developed.
More work is required to test this treatment approach in human subjects, and the outcome of such clinical trials will determine whether the mirror-image molecule can start being administered to patients that have cancers with the surface transporter responsible for letting this molecule inside them. Not all cancers have this molecule, so the potential of the treatment approach only applies to the specific cancers that allow this amino acid to enter their cells.
The search for better cancer treatments is ongoing and companies like CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are also pursuing their own R&D programs aimed at commercializing medications indicated for central nervous system malignancies.
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