Exactly into cancer, without spoiling healthy cells
The drug rigosertib destroys only rapidly dividing cancer cells
The new drug rigosertib allows pancreatic cancer cells to start their replication process, and then leaves them without energy, freezing, that is, destroying them in the very middle of mitosis. Healthy cells do not suffer at the same time.
Rigosertib
The data of the first phase of clinical trials conducted at the University of Colorado and Onconova Therapeutics (USA) on patients suffering from stages II and III pancreatic cancer turned out to be extremely promising. You can find them in the journal Clinical Cancer Research (Phase 1 study of rigosertib, an inhibitor of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase and polo-like kinase 1 pathways, combined with gemcitabine in patients with solid tumors and pancreatic cancer). Despite the fact that the goal of any first phase of trials is always only to establish an optimally balanced dose (efficacy / severity of side effects), 11 out of 19 patients demonstrated stabilization of the condition and cessation of disease progression.
Instead of obeying and following the natural cell cycle, cancer cells rush, producing two factors in excess – PLK1 and PI3K. They allow cells to literally skip the entire cell cycle and divide much faster. Thus, cancer cells bypass one of the stages of the G1 cell cycle regulation mechanism, relying entirely on the functionality of PLK1 and PI3K factors to ensure a crazy spurt through the replication process.
G1 (from English. gap – gap) is the next phase of initial growth after cell division, during which mRNA, proteins, and other cellular components are synthesized.
Polo-like kinases (polo-like kinases) and phosphatidylinositol-3-kinases (phosphoinositide 3-kinases) are important regulators of many cell cycle–related signaling pathways - VM
It was PLK1 and PI3K that became the target of rigosertib. Without these signaling factors (if they are turned off), cancer cells remain without energy and die at the stage of mitosis. While healthy cells, crawling slowly through their normal natural cycle of division, are not affected by the new medication.
Thus, scientists managed to seize on the biggest advantage of cancer cells – rapid division – and direct it against them. In addition, this is the rarest case when a drug affects the very basis of cellular life, without affecting healthy cells at all. Especially popular for twenty years now, Paclitaxel also undermines the cellular mechanism of division, but at the same time does not make any difference between healthy and cancer cells, which leads to a rapid decrepitude of the whole organism.
Prepared based on the materials of the University of Colorado at Denver: Tortoise and the Hare: New drug stops rushing cancer cells, slow and steady healthy cells unharmed.
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05.03.2012