Tracing & Targeting Tumours
- Shweta Katakdhond
- May 7, 2020
- 2 min read
Cancer. A six lettered word, yet so impactful to hear.
Over a hundred different forms of cancer exist, alongside several various methods of treatment to combat it, primarily including: Chemotherapy, Radiation therapy, Immunotherapy, as well as Targeted therapy. Let’s take a step into targeted therapy and explore a new method of drug development and unravel the its developmental prospects it has to offer!
Let’s keep the complex names short. MG11 is a peptide, which are short, simplified or a much more basic form of chains of amino acids. What really is amusing about them is their high affinity towards the Cholecystokinin-2 receptors (CCK2R) which has been reported to be produced in excess in almost all types of cancers. This overexpression allows better interaction between the CCK2R and the peptides which allows us to create a more target - based approach while dealing with tumours. Enhancement of these peptides through stabilizing enable a more efficient approach to cancer therapy.
Imagine if you were told to meet a friend at a particular place, the problem is… you have absolutely no idea how to get there because you don’t have a set of directions to guide you. The probability of you eventually finding the designated destination is quite low due to all the possible combinations of pathways. However, if you had some sort of signal, or direction, the problem could have easily been avoided in order to reach the desired location. Similarly, CCK2R acts as a signal which attracts the MG11 peptide to have better interactions with each other and facilitate faster diagnostic testing. In addition to increased receptor affinity, the MG11 peptide has revealed increased resistance towards enzymatic degradation, which in short is, the break down of polymers, to prevent the catalysis of the peptide.
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