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HIV Protein Key to New Cancer Therapy

Posted on: Monday, 19 February 2007, 15:00 CST

A protein in HIV that helps the virus enter cells has been combined with a tumor suppressor protein to create a new cancer therapy, report U.S. researchers.

William G. Hawkins and Richard S. Hotchkiss led a team based at Washington University in St. Louis that combined the TAT protein from HIV with the Bim protein that occurs naturally in the human body and tells cancer cells that their lifecycle has ended (apoptosis).

TAT alone cannot cause AIDS and has no adverse health effects, but according to Hawkins, You could almost hook TAT up to a train and TAT would drag it inside a cell.

Since cancer cells disable their own apoptosis signals, sending in proteins the body specifically designs to stop them forces the cells to die. When the researchers tested the TAT-Bim combination in mice with malignant tumors, that is exactly what it did. After 40 days, 80 percent of the TAT-Bim group were still alive compared to 20 percent of the mice that didn't receive treatment.

The team is now working on ways to attach TAT-Bim to radioactive tracer molecules that selectively bind to cancer cells, and will attempt to attach the protein combination to chemotherapy drugs and other anticancer therapeutics.

They are also creating a battery of new apoptosis-inducing proteins and say clinical trials of the technique could occur within a few years.

For more information, see the January issue of Annals of Surgical Oncology.

Source: United Press International

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