(Left) Brazilian tarantula; (Right) Japanese horseshoe crab.Photo:Eduardo Justiniano/AGB Photo Library/Universal Images Group via Getty; Leonid Serebrennikov/Alamy
Eduardo Justiniano/AGB Photo Library/Universal Images Group via Getty; Leonid Serebrennikov/Alamy
The Brazilian tarantula and the Japanese horseshoe crab might be key in helping battle certain types ofskin cancer.
According to a new study, Australian researchers have found that the peptides isolated from the two animals have killed drug-resistantmelanomacells.
Researchers from Brisbane’s Translational Research Institute (TRI) found that the peptides “kill metastaticmelanoma cellsthat are sensitive, tolerant, or resistant to [the cancer drug] dabrafenib,” the study, published inPharmacological ResearchDec. 16, says.
Stock image of melanoma.Getty
Getty
But the peptides didn’t just kill “highly proliferative [rapidly growing] melanoma cells,” Henriques continued. “They also kill the dormant cells and those that have gained resistance.”
She explained that due to the speed with which the animal peptides work to kill the melanoma, the cancer cells did not “remodel their cell membrane composition or develop resistance to peptide treatment.”
“This is potentially significant because the main issue in treating cancer patients is that they eventually gain resistance to their current therapy,” she said.
The study was conducted on mice, and the researchers said they are about five years worth of research away from clinical human trials.
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(Left) Brazilian tarantula; (Right) Japanese horseshoe crab.Cyrus McCrimmon/The Denver Post via Getty; Getty
Cyrus McCrimmon/The Denver Post via Getty; Getty
As the study’s first author, Dr. Aurelie Benfield, from QUT’s School of Biomedical Sciences, said, this could be “beginning of a great new future for therapeutic peptides.”
“Peptides are thus well suited as templates to design new anticancer therapeutic strategies,” the study says, but as Benfield pointed out, it all comes down to money: “If we can get funding and interest from industry,” she said, “Hopefully we can accelerate things very quickly.”
Melanomais “one of the better-known types of skin cancer,”Verywell Healthreports. “In the U.S., there are about 106,000 cases per year and about 7,100 people die from it annually.”
Although it’s not the most common type of skin cancer, theAmerican Academy of Dermatology Associationreports that “melanoma rates in the United States have been rising rapidly" in recent years.
source: people.com
