Patients diagnosed with mesothelioma, an asbestos-caused cancer, often endure many rounds of chemotherapy while fighting the disease. Unfortunately, the side effects caused by the potent medicines can be debilitating, often leading patients to halt treatment. Within the past few months, however, researchers have found several solutions for increasing the effectiveness of chemotherapy and for lowering its toxicity in cancer patients. Now, researchers at Duke University report yet another breakthrough in reducing chemotherapy’s side effects.
Physicians rely on chemotherapy in the treatment of mesothelioma, as well as many other cancers. One issue with chemotherapy is that the medicine is highly toxic and it kills healthy cells as well as the diseased cells. But Duke researchers found the “transporter” molecules that can deliver chemotherapy directly to the diseased cells, bypassing the healthy cells and limiting the effects from toxicity.
The “transporter” molecules, or nucleoside transporters, the researchers found, work by moving nucleosides, the basic building blocks of nucleic acids or DNA and RNA, from the outside to the inside of cells. The transporter also carries the nucleoside-like chemotherapy drugs through cell membranes into the DNA, preventing tumor cells from dividing and growing.
“Knowing the structure and properties of the transporter molecule may be the key to changing the way that some chemotherapies, for example, could work in the body to prevent tumor growth,” said senior author Seok-Yong Lee, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry at Duke.
By understanding the interaction between the transporter and the cancer drug, the researchers believe a new drug can be developed with a unique shape the transporters will recognize. A lower dosage of drug, with fewer side effects, could then be used to successfully fight the cancer.
Duke reports the next step “will be to try to understand which features of the transporter confer the ability to recognize certain chemo drugs and ultimately to design drugs that can easily enter the cells.”
This finding offers hope to mesothelioma patients who have limited treatment options. A drug that is effective, yet does not have toxic side effects can mean the difference in survival and prognosis for those that cannot tolerate current chemotherapy treatments.