New Cancer Therapy Being Developed at U of Michigan

A team of researchers at the University of Michigan have announced they have found a new weapon in the fight against cancer, and as a side note shows a need to preserve natural environments.

An interdisciplinary team led by David Sherman and Janet Smith of Michigan’s Life Sciences Institute studies uses for toxins found in and around coral reefs to fight cancer. They were looking how a common family of proteins, found in a broad variety of life, from microorganisms to humans, are made, looking at more than 60 steps necessary for the complex proteins formation.

One of the toxins under close scrutiny is curacin A, derived in 1994 by William Gerwick of the University of California, San Diego from a Caribbean coral-reef cyanobacterium, L. majuscula. Lab studies have shown that curacin A may be effective in treating colon kidney and breast cancer.

What the team found was that the commonly occurring GNAT protein complex, which has long been linked to gene regulation, hormone synthesis, and antibiotic resistance in bacteria, was the important first catalyst in the synthesis of curacin A. Sherman’s team published the blueprint for the steps in synthesizing curacin A in 2004, but until now did not understand the purpose of GNAT in that process.

With the methods derived from the research, the team is hopefully it will be able to more rapidly reverse engineer the processes organisms have evolved over the ages, and also find ways to tweak the naturally occurring substances so they are even more effective in fighting cancer.

"It's a totally new function for these GNAT enzymes," Sherman said in a press release from the University of Michigan. "Decoding these biosynthetic pathways is like trying to understand a series of hieroglyphics," he said. "And this GNAT discovery is like finding the Rosetta stone."

Another issue that this research brings into the spotlight is the fast-dwindling reef habitats in which these drugs are being discovered. One of the most famous compounds derived from research into marine toxins is AZT, used in the treatment of HIV and AIDS.

Mark Spalding, lead author of the United Nation’s atlas of coral reefs told the BBC in 2001 that “Less than 10% of an estimated 1-2 million reef species have been identified.” Researchers looking at medical uses of compounds found in coral reefs have so far located a dozen that are in clinical or pre-clinical trials.

The group’s finding was published in the journal Science on November 9.