Malaria vaccine has become a candidate for cancer drugs
Vyacheslav Golovanov, GeekTimes based on Medical Xpress: Malaria vaccine provides hope for a general cure for cancerDanish biologists from the University of Copenhagen and the University of British Columbia (Canada), studying the effect of the malaria vaccine on the body of pregnant women, accidentally discovered a promising property of this vaccine that can help in the fight against cancer.
Scientists, testing a malaria vaccine on humans, according to them, stumbled upon an interesting fact – parasitic malaria unicellular organisms (protists) cling to the placenta with exactly the same proteins that can be found in cancer cells.
"For decades, scientists have been looking for common signs in the processes of placenta and tumor growth. In a few months, the placenta grows from several cells to an organ weighing 600-700 g, while functioning relatively autonomously. In a sense, tumors behave in a similar way," says Ali Salanti from the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Copenhagen.
Salanti explained that the team of biologists managed to find out: both in the placenta and in the tumor, this protein is responsible for rapid growth. In one of the experiments, a malaria parasite behaved with tumor cells in the same way as with the placenta, that is, it joined them.
Then, in the laboratory, scientists reproduced the protein used by malaria parasites and added a toxin to it. This couple is able to look for cancer cells in the body. The cell absorbs the protein, after which the toxin is released inside the cell and kills it. This miraculous process has already been recorded both in artificially grown cells and in live mice. This was told by biologist Mads Daugaard, one of Salanti's former students, with whom they are now working together on this task.
A drawing from an article by Salanti et al. Targeting Human Cancer by a Glycosaminoglycan Binding Malaria ProteinScientists claim that they have tested thousands of copies of completely different cancer cells, and 90% of them actively interact with the protein.
Experiments were conducted on mice with three types of tumors that were implanted in their bodies. As a result, either a significant decrease in the size of tumors was registered, or their disappearance in a large percentage of experimental subjects, or the survival of mice, unlike those who did not receive an experimental drug.
"It seems that the malaria protein attaches itself to tumors and does not pay attention to other tissues. The percentage of surviving mice who received doses of protein and toxin to the dead was significantly higher than those who did not receive these doses. Three doses can stop the growth of the tumor and even make it shrink," said Thomas Mandel Clausen, PhD, who has been working in the research group for two years.
Scientists explain that human tests can be carried out no earlier than in four years. The most important question is whether this method will work in the human body, and whether the body can cope with the doses that are necessary to achieve results. If suddenly this method works, then the only problem will be that such a medicine cannot be used by pregnant women.
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19.10.2015