They discover how to carry out, within tumor cells, a chemical reaction capable of destroying key molecules for their proliferation

The prestigious magazine Nano Letters publishes the work led by professors and researchers from the University of Zaragoza Javier Bonet–Aletá, José Luis Hueso y Jesus Santamaría, attached to INMA, CIBER-BBN and IIS Aragón

La catalytic therapy constitutes a new strategy in the fight against cancer, whose objective is to trigger chemical reactions harmful to the tumor

A team of scientists from the University of Zaragoza, in the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon, (INMA, joint institute of the CSIC and UNIZAR), also attached to the CYBER–BBN and IIS Aragon, has discovered a way to carry out a new chemical reaction, called transamination, artificially inside cancer cells to destroy molecules of vital importance for the development and growth of tumor cells. The prestigious magazine Nano Letters publishes the work led by professors and researchers from the University of Zaragoza Javier Bonet–Aletá, José Luis Hueso y Jesus Santamaría, attached to INMA (CSIC-UNIZAR), CIBER–BBN and IIS Aragón.

La catalytic therapy It constitutes a new strategy in the fight against cancer, whose objective is to trigger chemical reactions harmful to the tumor. Ultimately, it is intended to replace current chemotherapy, using catalysts that either generate toxic molecules. in of the tumor, or eliminate molecules that it needs to proliferate.

In this second line of elimination of key molecules, since the first positive results published in 2015, the catalysts have been directed either at glucose, which is a particularly important source of energy for cancer cells, or at glutathione, an antioxidant that protects to tumor cells of highly reactive radical species and is partly responsible for the resistance of these cells to chemotherapeutic treatments. Both glucose and glutathione were eliminated through oxidation reactions, something especially difficult when applying them, given the lack of oxygen that exists in the hypoxic tumor environment.

This study, published in the prestigious journal Nano Letters, is of special importance, not only because it opens the field to new reactions of interest in oncology, but because it does so in a process - transamination - that does not require oxygen to be carried out, eliminating the main restriction of catalytic therapies. The reaction operates on the amino acids, essential components that cells use to make proteins, and on the pyruvate, a small and abundant molecule involved in the main energy obtaining pathway in the cell. The reaction between the two reduces the levels of amino acid and pyruvate in cancer cells, bringing them to a critical situation and stopping their expansion and growth.

During transamination, an amino group is exchanged between a amino acid y pyruvate, generating a substance that the cell is not able to use so easily. Researchers have demonstrated this by reacting pyruvate with different amino acids, such as glutamine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid or glutathione itself. Transamination has a drawback: it is catalyzed by copper atoms, whose flow through the cell membrane under normal conditions is highly restricted. To resolve this limitation, the researchers designed nanoparticles containing this metal, multiplying internalization in the tumor cell. Once internalized, the nanoparticle dissolves, releasing copper atoms that act as catalysts in the transamination reaction.

The article includes the work led by doctors Javier Bonet Aletá, José Luis Hueso y Jesus Santamaría, teaching and research staff of the University of Zaragoza at the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon (INMA, joint CSIC-UNIZAR center), from the Biomedical Network Research Center for Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CYBER–BBN) and the NANBIOSIS Platform and the Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragon).

Other members of the University of Zaragoza have also participated, such as Javier Martin Martin, belonging to the Department of Organic Chemistry and INMA, and Miguel Encinas Gimenez, Ana Martin Pardillos y Pilar Martín-Duque, also members of the Health Research Institute (IIS) from Aragón, as well as the doctor Juan Vicente Alegre Requena, CSIC senior scientist at the Institute of Chemical Synthesis and Homogeneous Catalysis, ISQCH, joint center of the CSIC and UNIZAR.

Source: INMA