New anticancer molecules kill disease cells more strongly

A new class of anti-cancer molecules is able to kill diseased cells that are most resistant to therapies and that often give rise to metastases . Their success is due to their ability to weaken tumor cells by exploiting the iron that they accumulate in large quantities. The result, published in the journal Nature, is due to the research group led by the French Curie Institute, the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the French National Institute for Research on Health and Medicine (INSERM).

The first tests on animals have shown a significant reduction in tumor growth , and it is now necessary to move on to clinical tests on humans to understand whether these molecules will be able to integrate the therapies currently available. The researchers coordinated by Raphaël Rodriguez started from the extraordinary properties of the most persistent tumor cells : these, thanks to a protein present on the surface, are able to store large quantities of iron , which makes them more aggressive and capable of surviving standard treatments . But this strength can turn into a weakness: the high presence of this element, in fact, makes the cells more vulnerable to the so-called ferroptosis , a process of cell death started by the iron itself, which causes the oxidation and degradation of the fats that form the membranes . This reaction then propagates in the cell, until it kills it.

The authors of the study have therefore developed a new class of small molecules that activate ferroptos i: these molecules have a fragment that allows them to accumulate in cells and another that binds to iron, making it more reactive. Fento-1, this is the name of the compound, was also designed to be fluorescent, and this allowed the researchers to observe its behavior and confirm its mode of action.