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A virus that sickens turnip plants could become part of a novel means of delivering cancer-fighting drugs directly to tumor sites in the human body.
The project, which involves faculty from the chemistry department and the School of Medicine, focuses on using the turnip yellow mosaic virus—harmless to humans—as a vehicle to carry nano-scale bits of cancer-fighting drugs. In initial experiments, the viral package would be linked with an antibody that targets breast cancer cells.
“Think of it like a ‘smart’ vehicle—a 30-nanometer police car that can find and kill the bad guys,” said Qian Wang, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
The research is in its beginning stages, but the hoped-for scenario looks like this: researchers successfully scoop out the core of the turnip virus and stuff the shell with a cancer-fighting drug. The virus is linked with Herceptin, an antibody that targets receptor sites on breast cancer cells. The Herceptin acts as a guide for the virus shell, leading it to cancer cells where the virus releases its toxic payload of anti-cancer drugs.
Researchers will use laboratory mice to test the ability of Herceptin to lead the altered viral particles to breast cancer cells.
“This is a proof of principle project—can we link Herceptin to the virus and can it lead the virus to the breast cancer cells? If we can demonstrate that, there’s a lot of potential application for treatment of cancer,” said Kim Creek a School of Medicine pathology professor who is collaborating with Wang and Lucia Pirisi-Creek, his wife and fellow pathology professor. They will use several breast cancer cell lines available in their lab for this virus-based drug delivery project.
“Another potential use of the antibody-linked virus is in detection of cancer,” Creek said. “We could attach a fluorescent marker to the virus, then watch where it goes. It may prove useful in finding any remaining bits of tumor or cancer cells after surgery or in the early detection of precancerous lesions that don’t show up using current technologies.”
10/04
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