Researchers at the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR) have developed technology that can alter, within the body, the recognized identity of proteins. The innovation, published in Nature Communications on October 2 , allowed researchers to target mouse tumors with a protein and then transport that protein out of the body. This means that cancer-killing drugs could be sent directly to tumors and then excreted from the body after dropping off their payload.
The technology also has the potential to allow multi-purpose drugs that can travel from organ to organ, performing separate actions at each location. Proteins in the blood travel all over the body, making them ideal carriers for targeted treatments against diseases like cancer. To avoid harming untargeted tissue, the drugs need to do their damage by attaching to the correct cells, and this requires a complicated molecular ID card.
The new study led by Katsunori Tanaka at RIKEN CPR focuses on changing the identification markers on the surface of the albumin, the most abundant protein in the blood, thus changing which tissues it can attach to in the mouse body. In a previous study, Tanaka's team examined cancer-targeting capabilities of different identification-marking molecules -; called glycans -; that they attached to albumin. They found that identification pattern 'A' could bind to human colon cancer, as well as be transported to the bladder for excretion in urine, while identification pattern 'B' caused albumin to.