03 diciembre 2008

Irvalec important implications in the development because tumor cells with high FA2H expression are expected to be particularly sensitive to this drug

Irvalec tambien conocido como PM - 02734 ... Analogo del Kahalalide - F .

December 1 .

Levels of SCS7/FA2H-Mediated Fatty Acid 2-Hydroxylation Determine the Sensitivity of Cells to Antitumor PM02734.
Herrero AB, Astudillo AM, Balboa MA, Cuevas C, Balsinde J, Moreno S.
Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular del Cáncer, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas/Universidad de Salamanca, Campus Miguel de Unamuno, Salamanca, Spain.

PM02734 is a novel synthetic antitumor drug that is currently in phase I clinical trials. To gain some insight into its mode of action, we used the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system. Treatment of S. cerevisiae with PM02734 rapidly induced necrosis-like cell death, as also found for mammalian cells treated with its close analogue kahalalide F. We have screened the complete set of 4,848 viable S. cerevisiae haploid deletion mutants to identify genes involved in sensitivity or resistance to PM02734. Forty-five percent of the 40 most sensitive strains identified had a role in intracellular vesicle trafficking, indicating that the drug severely affects this process. A mutant strain lacking the sphingolipid fatty acyl 2-hydroxylase Scs7 was found to be the most resistant to PM02734, whereas overexpression of Scs7 rendered the cells hypersensitive to PM02734. To validate these findings in human cells, we did small interfering RNA experiments and also overexpressed the Scs7 human homologue FA2H in human cancer cell lines. As in yeast, FA2H silencing turned the cells resistant to the drug, whereas FA2H overexpression led to an increased sensitivity. Moreover, exogenous addition of the 2-hydroxylated fatty acid 2-hydroxy palmitic acid to different human cell lines increased their sensitivity to the cytotoxic compound. Taken together, these results suggest that the cell membrane and, in particular, 2-hydroxy fatty acid-containing ceramides are important for PM02734 activity. These findings may have important implications in the development of PM02734 because tumor cells with high FA2H expression are expected to be particularly sensitive to this drug. [Cancer Res 2008;68(23):9779-87].



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Irvalec : Los ensayos clínicos de Fase I están reclutando al ritmo esperado, y se ha alcanzado la dosis recomendada en el esquema de infusión de 24 horas. se han iniciado los tramites para empezar dos nuevos ensayos clínicos: un estudio fase I en combinación con Tarceva, y un estudio fase II, como agente único en cáncer de pulmón.

PD : Tarceva es de Genentech en EEUU , de Roche en EU y de Chugai en Japan .