Anti-cancer sea cucumber
Far Eastern scientists have revealed a new anti-tumor property of a substance from cucumaria
FEFU Press Service
The property of a substance from the Far Eastern sea cucumber (cucumaria) to kill tumor cells was revealed by a group of scientists from the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FEB RAS), Germany and Switzerland. The effect of the biologically active compound frondoside A has been proven in models of bladder cancer and lymphoma resistant to known chemotherapeutic drugs. The research results have been published in the international scientific journals BMC Cancer (Dyshlovoy et al., The marine triterpene glycoside frondoside A induces p53-independent apoptosis and inhibits autophagy in urothelial carcinoma cells) and Leukemia & Lymphoma (Dyshlovoy et al., Frondoside A induces AIF-associated caspase-independent apoptosis in Burkitt lymphoma cells).
According to Sergey Dyshlovoy, a researcher at the Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Laboratory of Biologically Active Substances of the FEFU School of Natural Sciences, frondoside A is capable of killing tumor cells that do not contain the p53 protein. This element is present in healthy cells, but mutates in cancer cells and does not perform its protective functions. The researchers found that the substance isolated in TIBOH from cucumaria has such a strong effect that it kills even cells without p53 that are resistant to classical chemotherapy.
"The results of our work are valuable both for practical medicine, as a way to destroy tumor cells resistant to treatment, and for fundamental science, because this is a new biological property of a previously known substance," Sergey Dyshlovoy noted. "The studies were carried out on tumor cell cultures and still require additional in vivo testing (on living organisms)."
The main tests were carried out in the laboratory of experimental Oncology at the University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf (Germany), whose researcher is Sergey Dyshlovoy. Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of TIBOH, Head of the Department of Bioorganic Chemistry and Biotechnology of FEFU Valentin Stonik, scientists of TIBOH Vladimir Kalinin, Sergey Avilov, Alexandra Silchenko and colleagues from Switzerland also took part in the work.
"The study of marine hydrobionts is quite promising for the search for new anticancer compounds,– added Sergey Dyshlovoy. – Marine invertebrates accumulate highly active substances in their organisms for their own protection. These compounds have various, including medicinal properties, which were created by nature and selected by millions of years of evolution."
The search and study of compounds with anticancer properties is one of the successful areas of work of researchers of the Far Eastern Federal University together with scientists of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For 50 years, the Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry has isolated and established the chemical structure of more than 500 new natural compounds from marine organisms and unique plants of the Russian Far East.
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