Understanding the mechanism of action (MOA) of bioactive natural products will guide endeavor to improve their cellular activities. Artemisinin and its derivatives inhibit cancer cell proliferation, yet with much lower efficiencies than their roles in killing malaria parasites. To improve their efficacies on cancer cells, we studied the MOA of artemisinin using chemical proteomics and found that free heme could directly activate artemisinin. We then designed and synthesized a derivative, ART-TPP, which is capable of targeting the drug to mitochondria where free heme is synthesized. Remarkably, ART-TPP exerted more potent inhibition than its parent compound to cancer cells. A clickable probe ART-TPP-Alk was also employed to confirm that the attachment of the TPP group could label more mitochondrial proteins than that for the ART derivative without TPP (AP1). This work shows the importance of MOA study, which enables us to optimize the design of natural drug analogues to improve their biological activities.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201607303 | DOI Listing |
Chem Biodivers
January 2025
St Xavier's College, Kolkata, Department of Chemistry, 30, Mother teresa Sarani, Kol-16, 700016, Kolkata, INDIA.
Amino-quinolines are potential candidates that may provide some insight into the current chemotherapeutic research due to their demonstrated anti-cancer activity. This led us to synthesize and explore a new amino-azo-quinoline ligand H2L 1 and its square planar nickel(II) complexes [Ni(HL)(OAc)], 2 and [Ni(HL)Cl], 3 and the structures were determined by SCXRD. Theoretical investigation of redox orbitals of the complexes discloses that the reduction process is due to ligand reduction whereas both metal and ligand are contributing towards oxidation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMol Cancer Res
January 2025
Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
Breast cancers of the IntClust-2 type, characterized by amplification of a small portion of chromosome 11, have a median survival of only five years. Several cancer-relevant genes occupy this portion of chromosome 11, and it is thought that overexpression of a combination of driver genes in this region is responsible for the poor outcome of women in this group. In this study we used a gene editing method to knock out, one by one, each of 198 genes that are located within the amplified region of chromosome 11 and determined how much each of these genes contributed to the survival of breast cancer cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClin Cancer Res
January 2025
Bristol-Myers Squibb (United States), Summit, New Jersey, United States.
Purpose: Orvacabtagene autoleucel (orva-cel; JCARH125), a CAR T-cell therapy targeting B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA), was evaluated in relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) patients in the EVOLVE phase 1/2 study (NCT03430011). We applied a modified piecewise model to characterize orva-cel transgene kinetics and assessed the impact of various covariates on its pharmacokinetics (PK).
Experimental Design: The population PK analysis included 159 patients from the EVOLVE study.
Mol Biol Evol
January 2025
Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, George S Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
Bats have adapted to pathogens through diverse mechanisms, including increased resistance - rapid pathogen elimination, and tolerance - limiting tissue damage following infection. In the Egyptian fruit bat (an important model in comparative immunology) several mechanisms conferring disease tolerance were discovered, but mechanisms underpinning resistance remain poorly understood. Previous studies on other species suggested that elevated basal expression of innate immune genes may lead to increased resistance to infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClin Cancer Res
January 2025
Istituti Fisioterapici Ospitalieri, Italy.
Background: The role of activating alterations in the MAPK pathway in predicting immunotherapy efficacy in lung squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) patients is largely unknown. The aims of the randomized, phase II SQUINT trial were to assess the efficacy of nivolumab plus ipilimumab (NI) versus platinum-based chemotherapy plus nivolumab (N-CT) and to identify clinically available biomarkers of response to immunotherapy in patients with advanced or metastatic LSCC.
Methods: SQUINT was an open-label, randomized, parallel, non-comparative, phase II trial of NI versus N-CT in chemo-naïve, metastatic or recurrent LSCC adult patients.
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