Innovative Drug Discovery and Nanotechnology (Track)
Anticanum, a New-Generation Anti-Cancer Drug Based on a Self-Organizing Quasi-Life System
Sonya Sophya Farber Department of Drug Design and Nanotechnology
American Medical Technologies, Inc.
USA
Abstract:
Among the existing new fields in the treatment of oncological diseases, there are several quite promising approaches. One of these approaches may be considered the development of drugs for cancer gene therapy. In this approach, the main active principle is polynucleotides. Many research projects conducted in this direction have not come up with truly effective in vivo drugs (at present, not a single drug has been implemented). This is connected with a whole host of problems: the synthesized DNA (RNA) was quickly destroyed by blood nucleases and did not penetrate the cells, and the genome repair systems were disrupted. There are various approaches to the design of oligonucleotide antisense, but the principle of their interaction with the target remains the same: the creation of hydrogen bonds between complementary nucleotides upon increasing the level of resistance to nuclease. The principle of gene inactivation through their com-plementary interaction with antisense nucleotides has remained the same: the creation of hydrogen bonds. It is this hydrogen bond that is the main reason for the ineffectiveness of existing drugs based on antisense DNA (RNA). Ferments of a type of helicase very quickly and easily unwind antisense DNA that is hybridized with the gene target, and the gene’s activity begins again.
As a result of the studies we have conducted, the abovementioned problems have been ad-dressed in the following way: chemically modified antisense oligonucleotides with anti-cancer properties were synthesized, in which in the capacity of a main active ingredient, a formula of oligonucleotides from a mixture of the products of the hydrolysis of polynucleotides with molecular charges of the nucleotide bases changed to their opposite is used. Anticanum, the drug we have developed, is a dynamic, self-organizing quasi-life system based on a mixture of acidic RNA oligonucleotides. The mechanism of action of the drug we have developed is similar to that of microRNA, but instead of hydrogen bonds in the complementary RNA chains, non-hydrolyzable ionic bonds are formed. Also, there are tens of thousands of various-sized RNA fragments in the drug, which facilitates guaranteed circumstances for protein synthesis and prevents cancer cells from becoming resistant to the drug.
The specificity of the collection of the drug in the tumor cells is conditioned on the ability of the cancer cell to pick up the oligonucleotides, whereas common somatic cells do not have that property and pick up only mononucleotides and mononucleosides. The modified oligonucleotides that have been picked up selectively bond to their predecessors, deactivating them. Since these predecessors – the cancer RNA – are transport, matrix, and ribosomal, a full cessation of the synthesis of protein only in cancer cells is observed (the healthy cells are not capable of picking up the oligonucleotides). While the drug is present in the cell, the cell cannot divide.
Thus the drug we have developed has many unique properties: it does not have a toxic ef-fect on healthy cells; it is impossible for cancer cells to develop resistance to this drug, since it does not cause the death of cancer cells (in other words, it excludes the natural selection effect); also, the function of the search for and destruction of cancer remains vacant for the immune system to fulfill. While the drug is present in the body, cancer tumor growth will not be observed. There are no analogues of this drug at present in the world pharmaceutical arena; nearly all or the existing chemotherapeutic drugs on the pharmaceutical market are mitosis poisons that kill tumor cells and lead to natural selection and the appearance of resistant tumors; they cause incalculable damage to the body through their manifestation of strong toxic properties.
