[Cell Sub-Journal] MIT scientists aim at hydrogen peroxide to find a more effective way to treat cancer

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Author: Tiffany Guide: The reason why cancer is difficult to treat is because of the strong drug resistance, proliferation, immortality, clustering, systemic distribution, and infinite proliferation of cancer-causing factors, etc.
There are many reasons to decide and limit the treatment.
The infinite proliferation of cancer cells will definitely leave you at a loss.
There is no drug to stop its proliferation.
Moreover, the distribution of the whole body makes you never cut and cut, and relapse.
The second unsurpassable obstacle
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In many cases, early diagnosis is essential
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If cancer cells are detected and eliminated early, they can be cured
.

Even if it can't be completely eliminated sometimes, it can be controlled by drugs, turning it into a state of chronic disease, so that the patient can live like a normal person
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Recently, a group of MIT research teams conducted in-depth research on cancer treatment and discovered a novel and very effective mechanism to fight cancer
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What progress will this discovery bring to modern cancer treatment? Recently, chemical engineers at MIT have developed a method for rapid screening of compounds that can help them identify the therapeutic potential of these compounds against certain cancers
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These scientists use genetic engineering sensors and high-throughput technologies to detect how the concentration of hydrogen peroxide in cells changes
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Here is a brief introduction
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Hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) is a special molecule called an oxidant.
It is an inorganic compound, also known as ethoxane
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Pure hydrogen peroxide is a light blue viscous liquid that can be miscible with water in any proportion.
It is a strong oxidant.
Its aqueous solution is commonly known as hydrogen peroxide and is a colorless and transparent liquid
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Its aqueous solution is suitable for medical wound disinfection, environmental disinfection and food disinfection
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Under normal circumstances, it will slowly decompose into water and oxygen, but the decomposition rate is extremely slow.
The way to speed up the reaction is to add a catalyst-manganese dioxide, etc.
or irradiate it with shortwave rays
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Hydrogen peroxide has oxidation and reduction effects under different conditions.
In life, it can be used as a photographic stain remover, blue thinning of color positive films, and super-proportional thinning of films
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It is easy to decompose and not easy to keep for a long time
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On October 27, 2017, the list of carcinogens published by the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization was preliminarily compiled and referenced.
Hydrogen peroxide was placed in the list of three types of carcinogens
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In this MIT study, Hadley Sikes, an associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Career Development Esther and Harold Edgeton, said: "Some tumor regulation pathways rely on elevated levels of hydrogen peroxide.
, But further increase in the concentration of this oxidant will lead to programmed cell death (this mode of cell death is common in the development of organisms, and it is an active and orderly way of cell death determined by genes)
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" Among the 600 small-molecule compounds they screened, they were able to identify those compounds that selectively promote the production of hydrogen peroxide
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In some other previous studies, scientists used probes to make them react indiscriminately to different kinds of oxidants.
This approach is flawed, because it causes great difficulties for scientists’ research.
, It is difficult for them to accurately identify which compounds have the greatest impact on these special molecules
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However, in this experiment, the new screening method developed by MIT scientists is the first to target a single oxidant.
This allows their research team to describe the cell's response to potential drugs and confirm that some of these compounds activate The hydrogen peroxide-mediated toxicity of susceptible cancer cell lines
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They published the results of this research in an article titled "Screening compound libraries for H2O2-mediated cancer therapeutics using a peroxiredoxin-based sensor" in the journal Cell Chemical Biology: Hao Yining (transliteration) and Troy F.
Langford are the authors.
The first co-authors of this research paper.
Other contributors include Sun Jin Moon, a chemical engineering graduate student, and Kristen A.
Eller and Sikes who participated in the project as an undergraduate
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They explained: "Our new research helps to open up new methods for highly targeted oxidants
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At the same time, our new findings also prompt us to continue research in the right direction and effectively use drugs to treat different Patients, this is also a concept advocated by personalized medicine
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"Programmed cell death hydrogen peroxide belongs to the (ROS) molecular family, which is involved in the metabolism of oxygen
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Sikes said: "They are molecules with a'dual personality', and they are part of all the substances we depend on for survival.
They absorb oxygen from the air, then convert it into water, and then provide energy for the cells, but the concentration is not controlled.
If the reactive oxygen species lasts for too long, they will start to have side effects on the human body, such as they will interfere with the signaling pathways in the cell
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"When genes are mutated and cause cancer, sometimes oxidants (such as hydrogen peroxide) will increase sharply.
It will cause cell function to get out of control
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As the level of hydrogen peroxide rises, cancer cells release antioxidants to control them
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This kind of metabolic balance is difficult to maintain, and this is a problem that this group of scientists are discussing in this experimental study.
They hope to use this weakness to develop a more effective way to fight cancer
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The picture shows a tumor sample from a fluorescence microscope image.
At this time, scientists have found that the level of hydrogen peroxide has increased.
Their idea is that if hydrogen peroxide is selectively increased, these compressed cancer cells will die immediately
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They are looking for some of the fragility of this molecule, these fragile characteristics have a great impact on cancer cells, this impact is far greater than the effect on the surrounding healthy tissue
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At present, an anti-cancer drug has been developed
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The design principle of this anti-cancer drug is specifically to act on the hydrogen peroxide mechanism.
This drug mainly achieves this purpose in either of two ways: directly increase the cell level in this oxidant; destroy Antioxidant system
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However, this anti-cancer drug does not have a therapeutic effect on cancer as people expect in any case.
If there is no reliable method to detect hydrogen peroxide in cancer cells before and after drug treatment, precision medicine is still Unachievable
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In 2018, the biosensor developed and designed by Langford and Sikes appropriately solved this problem
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This sensor uses a substance called peroxidase-2, an enzyme that can record changes in hydrogen peroxide levels
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When using this sensor, when this enzyme reacts with hydrogen peroxide, it will fluoresce
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Langford later explained: "We wanted to use this sensor in a practical way.
We were thinking: The Koch Comprehensive Cancer Institute next door uses a high-throughput library of anticancer compounds.
Screening methods, and can we develop a better method? After that, we extracted these small molecules from the compounds they collected and added each molecule to the cancer cells containing our sensors
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"After careful consideration, Sikes decided to use those compounds that have been approved by the U.
S.
Food and Drug Administration and are very safe for humans.
These compounds also include some anti-cancer drugs that have been previously studied by other scientists
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The question is, if any, which method can effectively increase the concentration of hydrogen peroxide in the human cancer cell lines assembled by the research team
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Suddenly, when the research team used their own method for screening, after the drug interacted with the cell, the red fluorescent signal of the probe indicated an increase in the level of hydrogen peroxide.
They deliberately observed this
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But what is strange is that they found in the data analysis: Many of these signals are abnormally high, beyond the detection range of the sensor
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Then, they conducted a second round of experiments to ensure that these signals actually reflected changes in hydrogen peroxide levels
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After browsing the library of candidate drugs, they not only determined which compounds could be used to modulate hydrogen peroxide in specific cancer cells, but also linked some of them to cell death
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They finally found a surprise! An antifungal drug called SMER3 increased the level of hydrogen peroxide, Sikes said; "This is the most exciting experiment for us! SMER3 can kill yeast, and our experiments have also confirmed that it can effectively kill some cancers
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"The other conclusion of their research is: Cisplatin, a major anti-cancer drug known for increasing the level of oxidants, has failed.
Injury
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Cisplatin can activate iron death and induce autophagy)
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 Sikes said: "This substance cannot promote the production of more hydrogen peroxide.
Maybe it can promote the production of other oxidants, but it will not drive cancer.
The oxidants of the death reaction pathways in the subset have an effect
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"Their research has spawned some new businesses
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Sikes is collaborating with a clinician in Boston who specializes in cancers that are known to be susceptible to deficiencies in reactive oxygen species, such as colon cancer
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As a Langford paper study As part of, he tested SMER3 on colon cancer cells and found that it can kill certain cell lines very effectively
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They will also conduct in-depth research on this substance to better understand its characteristics and whether it is safe , Which cell pathways can be precisely targeted
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" Sikes said: "Our next experiment will turn our attention to studying animal models with patient-derived cancers, which will play a vital role in their final study of patient populations
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"In addition to hydrogen peroxide, Sikes also envisions the use of other molecules to achieve key roles in cells, and these molecules are also expected to become effective anti-cancer methods
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He explained: "There are also substances such as reactive nitrogen and sulfur, which are equally important and worth exploring
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"Reference material: https://medicalxpress.
com/news/2021-11-uncover-inter-reliance-stromal-cells-cancer.
html Note: This article is intended to introduce medical research progress and cannot be used as a reference for treatment plans
.

If needed For health guidance, please go to a regular hospital for medical treatment
.

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