Everything is poison and everything is medicine
Scientists have found out how the venom of the Brazilian wasp "purely" kills cancer cells
The venom of one type of Brazilian wasp is able to kill cancer cells and not destroy their healthy neighbors due to the fact that its molecules are "tuned" to work with those fats that are present only on the surface of cancer cells, according to an article in the Biophysical Journal (Leite et al., PE and PS Lipids Synergistically Enhance Membrane Poration by a Peptide with Anticancer Properties; Brazilian wasp venom kills cancer cells by opening them up is published on EurekAlert!; the original in Brazilian Portuguese, Toxina produzida por vespa mata células de câncer, can be read on the Universidade de São Paulo website :) - VM).
"Understanding how this protein works will help us figure out how we can adapt it as quickly as possible and start using it for the benefit of human health. As we have already demonstrated, it reacts only to cancer cells and is not toxic to healthy tissues, which indicates its potential safety. However, we still have to conduct additional experiments to confirm this," said Paul Beales from the University of Leeds (UK).
About seven years ago, biologists from Brazil and the USA made an amazing discovery – it turned out that the venom of the Brazilian wasp Polybia paulista is able to destroy cancer cells, literally tearing them apart, while not touching healthy tissues. In the course of subsequent experiments, scientists found that it is able to fight cancer of the blood, prostate and bladder, but could not reveal the mechanism of its selective action.
Beals and his colleagues became interested in this discovery and tried to uncover the secret of the "professionalism" of this killer of cancer cells, tracing its effect on healthy and cancer cells at the molecular level.
Scientists initially suspected that such selectivity of the poison is due to the fact that the shells of healthy and cancer cells are arranged differently. Normal body cells contain two layers of fats, each of which consists of different molecules. When a cell turns into a cancerous tumor, the chemical composition of these layers is disrupted, and the molecules that make up the inner half of the membrane often fall into the outer layer.
As Beals' experiments have shown, the appearance of two such fats – phosphaditylethanolamine and phosphaditylserine – on the surface of a cancer cell leads to the fact that the venom molecules begin to "stick" to it 7-8 times better than to the shell of a healthy cell.
The attachment of the poison on the surface of the membrane leads to the fact that pores begin to appear in it – in fact, ordinary "holes", whose diameter is rapidly growing along with the number of "killer" molecules. As a result, the contents of the cancer cell simply "flows out" and it dies.
Biles and his colleagues hope that Polybia paulista venom or its synthetic analogue can be used as a basis or one of the components for future cancer drugs that do not cause side effects and mass death of healthy cells, such as chemo and radiotherapy.
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08.09.2015