Precision treatment of cancer, Shenzhen scientists developed a "sugar-coated shell" therapy

In the long confrontation between humans and tumors, surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy have become common treatments. While killing tumor cells, these methods can also "accidentally injure" normal cells, which is how side effects such as hair loss and cardiotoxicity come about.

How to make the treatment method accurately oriented to tumor cells? The team of Geng Jin and Zhang Yichuan of the Shenzhen Advanced Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences cooperated with the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, which lasted 4 years to develop the "sugar-coated shell" therapy, that is, to wrap the anti-tumor drug with a non-toxic "coat" and release the medicinal properties when encountering tumor cells. On June 10, the results were published in Nature Chemistry.

X-ray activation of the "sugar-coated shell" schematic.

In terms of specific operation, the team first developed a non-toxic or low-toxic drug "coat" through chemical and biosynthesis as a prodrug for anti-tumor; the current drug reaches the tumor area, and then through internal or external stimulation, it is converted into a prototype drug molecule, which can kill the tumor and achieve precision treatment under the premise of ensuring that the impact on normal tissues and cells is minimized.

"The stimulation we use is mainly X-rays." Geng Jin said. It is reported that this radiation therapy is usually combined with drugs for the treatment of advanced cancer, but research on its use to activate drugs is still extremely limited. Geng Jin told reporters that there are two difficulties in this research: the first is to ensure that the prodrug is non-toxic or low-toxic; the second is to ensure that the prodrug takes off the "sugar coating" in time after encountering tumor cells.

"In the process of synthesizing prodrugs, some drug molecules cannot be well reduced to prototype drugs, and it is difficult to achieve therapeutic effects." Geng Jin pointed out that in order to remove the "sugar coating", it is necessary to find a prodrug molecular model that can be perfectly reduced to a drug for treating tumors.

In response, the research team screened 32 drug small molecules and successfully found several drug molecules that can be efficiently converted into molecules with therapeutic effects under low-dose X-ray radiation.

Further, the team introduced these types of active molecules found into anti-tumor drugs, successfully prepared the corresponding prodrug molecular patterns and fluorescent markers that can be effectively converted into common anti-tumor drugs such as doxorubicin under X-ray stimulation, and verified their pharmacological activity and biosecurity in cell experiments and mouse experiments, respectively.

"Current X-ray technology can be accurate to the tumor site in the millimeter level, which can greatly reduce the killing of normal cells." Geng Jin said, "We believe that with this approach, we can increase patient drug selection and open up a new era of targeted and targeted cancer radiotherapy for precision tumor therapy." Geng Jin said.

Content source: Shenzhen Business Daily

Reporter: Yuan Siru

Source: Shenzhen Release