Symbiotic Bacteria From Small Sea Creatures, Provide New Method of Producing Potential Cancer Drugs
University of Utah researchers headed by a medicinal chemist were able to develop a novel method of making drugs for cancer (and other diseases) from bacteria found in sponges and other small ocean creatures.
These (symbiotic) bacteria living only in sea squirts and other marine life are responsible for making a wealth of chemicals, which accumulate in the tissues of sea squirts and may help to defend them against predators.
Most of such chemicals have anticancer properties but harvesting the said bacteria in bulk for large-scale testing and production proved to be impractical.
This is where the Utah team came in. Their new method uses genetic pathways in the bacteria to produce the small chemicals and to manipulate them to invent new potential drugs.
According to Eric W. Schmidt, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Utah College of Pharmacy and senior author on the study:
”The ability to make these chemicals in the laboratory opens myriad possibilities for developing drugs to fight cancer, HIV, and other diseases.
This represents a new way of attacking the problem.
We’re hoping we can use this to find a way to make natural molecules of compounds through single mutations in DNA.”
This study appeared online on November 5 in Nature Chemical Biology.
Find more details from the Utah press release.
[Photo Credit: http://www.aboututila.com]
Tags: anti-cancer-drugs, marine-life, sea-sponges, sea-squirts, symbiotic-bacteriaRelated Stories
POSTED IN: general commentary, on anti-cancer ingredients
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