Korean researchers develop anticancer substance

Korean researchers have developed an anti-cancer substance candidate that can effectively kill cancer cells. It was found that little side-effects were detected on animal testing.

A team led by Chemistry Professor Shin In-jae at Yonsei University said Monday that it developed a substance called "apoptozole," which destroys heat-shock proteins 70 (HSP70). One of the heat-shock proteins, HSP70 is a substance that blocks cell deaths when cells are hit by shock. In normal cells, the protein serves as a cell destructor, but when it runs into an anticancer drug, it develops a tolerance. It is the first time that this substance was developed into an anticancer drug.

The research team has proved its effects through animal testing. They transplanted cellular tissues of a person suffering from lung cancer, colorectal cancer and cervical cancer into a rat`s skin, and injected into the rat apoptozole once every two days for two weeks. As a result, the size of cancer tissue decreased by 61 percent for lung cancer, 65 percent for colorectal cancer and 68 percent for cervical cancer. There was little side-effects such as loss of weight, diarrhea, and death while treatment, which were disadvantages of existing anticancer drugs.

The research team also discovered that anticancer effects increase if "doxorubicin," a drug currently used as an anticancer drug, is used together with apoptozole. When a rat suffering from cervical cancer was injected with either apoptozole or doxorubicin, cancer tissue size decreased by 68 percent for the former and 61 percent for the latter. When the two were used together, cancer tissue size is reduced by 81 percent.

"If apoptozole is used together with existing anticancer drugs, side effects will decrease while anticancer effects will increase," Professor Shin said. "Our latest discovery will contribute to the development of a new anticancer drug."

The latest results were published in the March 13 issue of Chemistry & Biology, a sister journal of science journal Cell.