Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
New Delhi: A new study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society recently stated that a protein known as MYC – which is a part of healthy cell activity usually – can go haywire when cancer cells start to develop.
This is when the protein goes beyond its normal functions and helps cancer spread faster. But as per scientists, there is a way to stop this from happening. However, experts say that a part of the problem is that MYC is a shapeless protein which makes it difficult for drugs to identify and target it. But a team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) has developed a peptide compound which can interact with MYC and bring it under control.
MYC protein, as per experts, is less like food for cancer cells and more like a steroid that promotes a tumour’s quick growth. This is why it is often deemed as culprit in 75 per cent of human cancer cases. Normally, its activity is strictly controlled. However, in case of cancer, it is not regulated properly and becomes hyperactive.
Researchers managed to study small parts of the structure that MYC does not have in order to build peptides that might cling on to it. One of the peptides in particular, NT-B2R, proved that it can disable MYC. In the tests, researchers used a culture made from human brain cancer cells, the NT-B2R, which successfully bound to MYC thereby changing the way cells regulated most of the genes ultimately decreasing metabolism and proliferation of cells.
But the key to this breakthrough was discovered previously by the same researchers who recognised that the structure and shape of peptides had changed and the molecules got better at interacting with shapeless proteins such as MYC. These peptides assumed several shapes, positions and forms and once bent and connected to form rings, they fail to assume other forms which helps with binding.
The binding performance of peptides over previous versions offers promise for the long-term treatment and prevention of cancers. Researchers said that while there is a lot of work that needs to be done in this area, the results are still quite promising. At present, the peptides are being delivered through fatty spheres called lipid nanoparticles that are not ideal for dispending drugs. Rigorous testing in human subjects will also be carried out, but it might be the method most effective for hijacking healthy biological processes for survival.
Because of a lack of structure, MYC represents chaos and this can directly impact many types of cancers
