A new treatment for cancer that does not harm healthy cells

According to RCO News Agency, For some proteins, just one mutation or change in the DNA instructions means that the balance between normal function and the development of cancer is lost.

But despite causing major diseases, these mutated proteins can look so similar to their normal versions that treatments designed to target these mutants can also damage healthy cells, according to AI.

A new study by researchers at NYU Langone Health and the Perlmutter Cancer Center describes the development of a biologic drug that is derived from natural biological systems and a mutated cancer protein called epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). without attacking its nearly identical natural counterparts in healthy cells.

New treatments

While the treatment is still in its early stages, researchers say it could lead to new treatments for cancer patients with epidermal growth factor receptor 2 mutations with minimal side effects.

“We set out to make an antibody that could detect a single change in the 600 amino acid building blocks that make up the exposed part of the epidermal growth factor receptor 2 protein,” says Shohei Koide, lead author of the research team. According to popular opinion, it is very difficult.

The fact that we were able to detect a single amino acid difference so cleanly was surprising.

When an amino acid substitution locks a protein in an “always-on” state, it can cause cancer, which in turn causes cells to divide and multiply uncontrollably.

Save healthy cells

There are a few FDA-approved treatments, including trastuzumab and pertuzumab, that can treat these types of cancers, but they all work at the level of epidermal growth factor receptor 2 at the cellular level, where only low levels of the mutated version Epidermal growth factor receptor #2 occurs.

“That means we can’t mark cancer cells just by looking at levels of epidermal growth factor receptor 2,” says Dr. Quaid, director of cancer biologics.

In addition, because some approved therapies cannot tell the difference between mutant and normal EGFR, they are more likely to harm healthy cells that express normal EGFR.

Antibodies are large, Y-shaped proteins that bind to specific targets and send signals to immune cells.

Treatment development process

In a process similar to natural antibody development, the researchers subjected the antibodies to several rounds of mutation and selection, looking for variants that recognized the mutated epidermal growth factor receptor 2 but not the normal version.

By taking atomic images with cryo-electron microscopy, the team observed how their new antibodies spatially interacted with epidermal growth factor receptor 2.

However, selectively identifying mutant versions of epidermal growth factor receptor 2 was only part of developing an effective cancer treatment, because antibodies must work with the immune system to kill cancer cells.

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