This paper suggests that the Brazilian wasp venom targets cancer cells and makes holes in the membrane large enough for the important cell reproducing things, like RNA, to spill out making the cancerous cell unable to reproduce and otherwise worthless until it gets disposed of regularly. It also apparently leaves normal cells alone (or has limited/no effect on them).
Edit: It does this in a petri dish, not a living body.
No. MPA-1 is an antimicrobial peptide, or short protein. These short proteins are very susceptible to other proteins in serum (your blood), which break them up quickly. Additionally, mass production of small peptides is very expensive, and even the results listed would never make it into a serious FDA trial; the selectivity ratio between healthy cells and cancer cells is still too low.
However, the insights into how and why this peptide acts the way it does are important to creating future therapeutic strategies.
Very cool. Once you validate a target, people can start working on finding things that will have the same affect on that target, but are actually useful in vivo. Medicine has came a long way from the old days of just throwing random molecules at a problem until you find one that works.
Ish. While this is another piece of evidence in the puzzle, we are a long way off from having a mechanistic understanding of these interactions.
Our current understanding of Biology is that the primary sequence of amino acids in a protein determine its structure, which then determines what that protein does. This is why finding all of those cool protein crystal structures is such a big deal. The issue is that these interactions are dynamic, and a protein can change its fold- what it looks like- based on pH, ions nearby, binding to other proteins, or being in a hydrophobic environment, such as the inner core of cell membranes.
We have no comprehensive understanding of how these interactions work, and thus a very shakey understanding of how to design or optimize structures like the ones we know work in a test tube to ones we know will work in a human. It's a long game with lots of players, but every little bit helps!
After reading the article I was under the impression that we are like Mario waiting to jump at the pole as far as cancer research is concerned. This just happens to be another hidden coin brick.
I've heard that chemotherapy drugs are poisonous to all cells; that's why they make you sick. Obviously they kill more cancer cells than normal cells. How does the selectivity in a "good" treatment compare to this venom?
Targeting cancer cells in a petri dish is easy compared to targeting cancer cells in a body. In a petri dish, this would beat out cisplatin. In a human, cisplatin is the winner because this venom wouldn't do much before it was broken down.
I tend to not find these types of thoughts a little misleading, and would try to steer away from them when you think about new drugs. If we tried to push Tylenol through the FDA right now, it would fail miserably. Chemo works alright, and we have ways of making it a more directed than a whole body assay now.
The problem with chemo is that it targets cell lines with high division rates, so while it will certainly kill cancer cells at a much higher ratio than, say, your white blood cells, it also kills your other cells that typically divide quickly too, such as the cells in your digestive track or your hair follicles.
I guess we just write off these cells being just as vulnerable as a, "the ends justify the means,' scenario.
I work at a national lab and do X-ray scattering from biological membranes to see how they interact with drugs :)! I usually look at peptides and lipopolysaccharides though. I am currently writing up a paper on how antimicrobial peptides differentiate between different sialic gangliosides in cancer cells- for full disclosure.
Yes and no. Our body's proteases break down free proteins fairly quickly, which is a good thing, in general. In terms of if it is a useful therapeutic, it really would just have to pass the almighty hurdle of proving itself better than doing nothing.
That's what I'm saying, even if we could modify the venom to some how withstand that then how would we go about containing it to cancer cells. If these things are even possible I'd imagine they'd take years and years of research just tocome up with a testable prodduct.
It would do what it does to cancer cells, but to all of your cells. Effectively causing paralsys and probably necrosis. Like how a spider liquifies its preys' insides.
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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '15
Who wants to ELINAS this for us?
(Explain like I'm not a scientist)