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Rare byproduct of marine bacteria kills cancer cells by snipping their DNA:
Yale University researchers have determined how a scarce molecule produced by marine bacteria can kill cancer cells, paving the way for the development of new, low-dose chemotherapies.
The molecule, lomaiviticin A, was previously shown to be lethal to cultured human cancer cells, but the mechanism of its operation remained unsolved for well over a decade. In a series of experiments, Yale scientists Seth Herzon, Peter Glazer, and colleagues show that the molecule nicks, cleaves, and ultimately destroys cancer cells' DNA, preventing replication.
"DNA is one of the primary targets of anticancer agents, and cleavage of both DNA chains is the most potent form of DNA damage," said Herzon, professor of chemistry. "But few anticancer agents are able to directly cleave DNA. The discovery that lomaiviticin A is capable of this suggests it could be very useful as a novel chemotherapy, possibly at low doses."
The abstract and paper can be found here.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Tuesday May 13 2014, @08:04AM
My guess is that this substance is being considered as a cancer therapy perhaps because cancer cells multiply much more quickly than normal cells, and hence are affected more by toxins like this than normal cells are. All chemotherapy drugs are basically poisons, except that for various reasons they can kill cancerous cells somewhat faster than they kill normal cells, because cancerous cells have slightly different behaviour and properties that these drugs exploit. So with proper, regulated doses, the patient undergoing chemotherapy should at the end of the treatment have enough of their cancer cells destroyed while leaving enough of their normal cells intact for the patient to continue living. I'm not paying $32 to read the whole article, and I'm guessing that you haven't read anything but the abstract either, but I guess the scientists must explain further in the body of the article why they think it might work as a chemotherapy drug. It appears in the Yale University press release that is the first article link after all.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 1) by turonah on Tuesday May 13 2014, @08:59AM
Unfortunately, it looks like the article is strictly looking at the difference in cytotoxicity between (-)-lomaiviticin A, (-)-lomaiviticin C, and (-)-kinamycin C, rather than explaining *why* it would be an effective treatment for cancer (if, in fact, it is).
This page, on the other hand, gives a pretty good overview of cytotoxicity as it's used for chemotherapy: http://www.patient.co.uk/health/chemotherapy-with- cytotoxic-medicines [patient.co.uk] (thanks, Google!). Apparently, hair, bone marrow, mouth, and gut cells also tend to divide rapidly (hence the hair loss, dry mouth, nausea, etc. that most patients suffer).