Publications by authors named "D U Miodragovic"

Patients with triple negative breast cancers (TNBCs)-highly aggressive tumors that do not express estrogen, progesterone, and human epidermal growth factor 2 receptors-have limited treatment options. Fewer than 30% of women with metastatic TNBC survive five years after their diagnosis, with a mortality rate within three months after a recurrence of 75%. Although TNBCs show a higher response to platinum therapy compared to other breast cancers, drug resistance remains a major obstacle; thus, platinum drugs with novel mechanisms are urgently needed.

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Platinum drugs (cisplatin, oxaliplatin, and carboplatin) and arsenic trioxide are the only commercial inorganic non-radioactive anticancer drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Numerous efforts are underway to take advantage of the synergy between the anticancer activity of cisplatin and arsenic trioxide - two drugs with strikingly different mechanisms of action. These include co-encapsulation of the two drugs in novel nanoscale delivery systems as well as the development of small molecule agents that combine the activity of these two inorganic materials.

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Arsenoplatins are adducts of two chemically important anticancer drugs, cisplatin and arsenic trioxide, that have a Pt(II) bond to an As(III) hydroxide center. Screens of the NCI-60 human tumor cell lines reveal that arsenoplatin-1 (AP-1), [Pt(μ-NHC(CH)O)ClAs(OH)], the first representative of this novel class of anticancer agents, displays a superior activity profile relative to the parent drugs AsO or cisplatin in a majority of cancer cell lines tested. These activity profiles are important because the success of arsenic trioxide in blood cancers (such as APL) has not been seen in solid tumors due to the rapid clearance of arsenous acid from the body.

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Starting in ancient China and Greece, arsenic-containing compounds have been used in the treatment of disease for over 3000 years. They were used for a variety of diseases in the 20th century, including parasitic and sexually transmitted illnesses. A resurgence of interest in the therapeutic application of arsenicals has been driven by the discovery that low doses of a 1% aqueous solution of arsenic trioxide (i.

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The first molecular adducts of platinum and arsenic based anticancer drugs - arsenoplatins - show unanticipated structure, substitution chemistry, and cellular cytotoxicity. The Pt-As bonds in these complexes are stable in aqueous solution and strongly influence the lability of the ligand.

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