Researchers studying how a common drug, hydralazine, for blood pressure and preeclampsia works at the cellular level have identified the specific mechanism through which it works and their discovery has revealed that the medication that has been around for more than half a century could find new application as a way to slow down how aggressively glioblastoma grows.
Despite how long this drug has been in use, it wasn’t clear how exactly it attained the effects it has upon blood pressure. This isn’t unique to hydralazine, as only 10-20% of all existing medications have known mechanisms of action.
In a study published in the Science Advances journal, a team at University of Pennsylvania discovered the specific mechanism through which this blood pressure drug works. They also discovered that this drug could help in stopping glioblastoma’s growth. Their research provides vital information regarding the specific way in which hydralazine works, and the results also open the door to new treatments for brain cancer and preeclampsia.
For their study, the team created HYZyne, a custom form of hydralazine. It was specially designed so that the team could identify the specific proteins to which the drug attached itself inside cells.
The purpose-built drug largely tagged the ADO enzyme (2-aminoethanethiol dioxygenase) plus a few other proteins. It has been known that ADO activation regulates the specific proteins responsible for relaxing blood vessels. When this enzyme is blocked the blood vessels stay relaxed, and that has the effect of reducing one’s blood pressure.
The research team confirmed that the blood pressure drug blocked the enzyme ADO from working and that was why vessels relaxed and one’s blood pressure dropped. More significant, glioblastoma has previously been linked to ADO and the team wanted to find out what would happen if this enzyme was blocked in cells afflicted by this brain cancer.
When infected cells were treated with the purpose-built drug, they went into “sleep mode” or became dormant. This senescence stopped their growth and multiplication for a number of days. This suggests that repeat treatments have to be administered in order to keep the cancer at bay.
However, the research was preclinical so its findings have to go through the clinical trial process to confirm that similar effects can be attained in humans. A major concern is that cancer cells mutate quickly, so there is a likelihood that the tumor cells could develop a way to sidestep their dependence on ADO and resume their growth and spread.
For this reason, the work that entities like CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are doing to develop new drugs that actually move the needle in reversing or preventing the brain cancer from growing rapidly and killing those it affects remains important.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CNSP
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