[tt] Nanotech approach kills resistant cancer cells

[Brian Atkins]

http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2725

A nanotechnology approach is being developed to selectively kill cancer 
cells—even those resistant to normal chemotherapy—using a peptide decorated with 
organic molecules called crown ethers. The peptide nanostructure is activated by 
a protein-cutting enzyme found on certain cancer cells so that the activated 
peptide aligns the crown ethers to punch holes in the cancer cell membranes. 
 From Chemical Biology, written by Kathleen Too “Peptides provide fatal blow for 
cancer cells“, via Nanowerk News:

     Peptide nanostructures that punch holes in cancer cells are ‘the first step 
towards efficient nanochemotherapeutics,’ say chemists in Canada.

     Normand Voyer and colleagues at the University of Laval in Québec have 
designed a series of modified peptide nanostructures that can puncture cancer 
cell membranes, leading to the cells’ death.

     The team explains that in the past decade, cancer cell resistance to 
chemotherapeutic agents has led to increased cancer deaths. ‘We believe that 
nanochemotherapeutics can overcome this problem due to the particular properties 
of nanometre-sized compounds,’ says Voyer.

     Basing their structures on a membrane-disrupting peptide they had made 
previously, the researchers engineered analogues that would be selective for 
cancer cells. The engineered peptides are inactive until they reach cancer cell 
surfaces where they convert into an active cell membrane disruption agent. Since 
the enzyme that activates the peptides is over-expressed in prostate cancer 
cells, normal cells do not activate the peptide to the same extent, leading to 
the peptides’ selectivity.

The research was published in a free access article in the journal Chemical 
Communications.

-- 
Brian Atkins
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/