Biomaterials: Qin Yan's team has developed a new photodynamic therapy to target tumor stem cell ribosomes and achieve tumor ablation

Ribosomes in each mammal copy number is tens of millions, accounting for about 10% of the total copy number of proteins in the cell, 85% of the total RNA, consuming more than 50% of the total ATP of the cell, is the cell's material and energy occupier and protein synthesizer
.

In rapidly proliferating cells, ribosomes possess a higher proportion of substances and energy, which is one of the important markers of tumor stem cells (CSCs) and has a significant correlation
with many surface markers of CSCs (such as CD133, CD44, etc.

Ribosome-targeting drugs have made the greatest contribution to the extension of human lifespan, taking the antibiotics that began to be used on a large scale in the 1940s as an example, the broad-spectrum antibiotics of ribosomal targets so far are the largest types of antibacterial drugs approved by FDA and other international drug regulatory organizations, especially macrolides (Macrolides, such as 14-membered ring erythromycin and its derivatives, 15-membered ring azithromycin, 16-membered cyclic acetyl spiramycin), aminoglycosides (aminoglycoside, Such as gentamicin, kanamycin, streptomycin, etc.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a type of treatment plan
that uses photosensitizers and chemotherapy drugs to assemble into nanodrugs, target tumor tissue, and use light as a switch for drug release and effectiveness.

Recently, the Qin Yan research group of the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the team of professors Wang Tianyu and Jiang Jianzhuang of the University of Science and Technology Beijing published a report in the journal Biomaterials: Amino porphyrin-peptide assemblies induce ribosome damage and cancer stem cell inhibition for an enhanced photodynamic Therapy research papers
.

This study explored for the first time the ribosomes of tumor stem cells (CSCs) as targeted targets, newly synthesized photodynamic drugs, obtained a good antitumor effect of tumor ablation, and deeply explored the molecular mechanism
of antitumor.

The research team first synthesized small peptides and photosensitizers that targeted ribosomes, and obtained good in vitro cancer suppression effects under the irradiation of far-infrared light, especially the significant reduction of tumor stem cells and the large number of inactivations
of ribosomes.

Photodynamic drug anti-tumor stem cell and ribosomal inhibition model

Qin Yan, researcher of Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Wang Tianyu and Jiang Jianzhuang of University of Science and Technology Beijing, and assistant researcher Ding Fang of Institute of Biophysics are co-corresponding authors
of this paper.

Thesis Links:

https://doi.