Japanese researchers have developed a method to synthesize anticancer compounds directly inside tumors using carbon monoxide, protecting healthy tissue from intoxication, infohub.kz reports.
Specialists at the RIKEN Institute of Advanced Research created a way to fight malignant tumors in which the tumor's own natural metabolic products are used to destroy it. The results of the research group led by Katsunori Tanaka were published in the journal Nature Communications.
Instead of toxic systemic chemotherapy, the authors proposed introducing harmless complexes that trigger the synthesis of an antitumor drug directly at the site of the disease. The chemists chose carbon monoxide, which cancer cells produce in excess, as the key raw material.
The main obstacle to targeted synthesis turned out to be the deactivation of metal catalysts by glutathione inside cells. To protect the palladium center of the palladacycles, the scientists enclosed the complex in a shell of serum albumin.
Experiments on cell lines of liver, lung, cervical and breast cancer showed that within 48 hours a toxic phenanthridinone successfully formed in the malignant cells, causing their death. In healthy cultures the reaction did not start because of the lack of sufficient free carbon monoxide.
The poison was also not synthesized in the blood, since carbon monoxide there is tightly bound by hemoglobin. The scientists are now preparing for preclinical trials of the technology on laboratory animals.