New compound kills cancer cells with no side effects

A recent research has shown that targeting  telomeres with a small molecule called 6-thiodG that takes advantage of the cell's 'biological clock' to kill cancer cells and shrink tumor growth holds promise of emerging as a new therapy to treat cancer. According to the findings, the molecule can stop the growth of cancer.

Jerry Shay, professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre in the US, said the researchers observed broad efficacy against a range of cancer cell lines with very low concentrations of 6-thiodG, which targets a unique mechanism that is thought to regulate how long cells could stay alive, a type of aging clock.

As per the study, the biological clock was defined by DNA structures known as telomeres that cap the ends of the cell's chromosomes to protect them from damage. Telomeres become shorter with each division of a cell and once telomeres had shortened to a critical length, the cell cannot divide and dies though a process known as apoptosis.

However, an RNA protein complex called telomerase ensures that telomeres do not shorten in cancer cells with every division.

According to Dr Wright, using telomerase to incorporate toxic products into telomeres was remarkably encouraging at this point.

Researchers say though telomerase was an almost universal oncology target, there were few telomerase-directed therapies in human clinical trials. Also, 6-thiodG could be used to disrupt the normal way cells maintained telomere length.

Meanwhile, an important advantage of the new therapy was that the researchers did not observe serious side effects in the blood, liver and kidneys of the mice that were treated with 6-thiodG.

According to Dr Shay, since telomerase was expressed in almost all human cancers, this work represented a potentially innovative approach to targeting telomerase-expressing cancer cells with minimal side effects on normal cells.

The researchers believed the small molecule would address an unmet cancer need in an underexplored area that would be rapidly applicable to the clinic, he added.