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L-Methionase: A Therapeutic Enzyme to Treat Malignancies
Cancer is an increasing cause of mortality and morbidity throughout the world. L-methionase has potential application against many types of cancers. L-Methionase is an intracellular enzyme in bacterial species, an extracellular enzyme in fungi, and absent in mammals. L-Methionase producing bacterial...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4164312/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25250324 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/506287 |
Sumario: | Cancer is an increasing cause of mortality and morbidity throughout the world. L-methionase has potential application against many types of cancers. L-Methionase is an intracellular enzyme in bacterial species, an extracellular enzyme in fungi, and absent in mammals. L-Methionase producing bacterial strain(s) can be isolated by 5,5′-dithio-bis-(2-nitrobenzoic acid) as a screening dye. L-Methionine plays an important role in tumour cells. These cells become methionine dependent and eventually follow apoptosis due to methionine limitation in cancer cells. L-Methionine also plays an indispensable role in gene activation and inactivation due to hypermethylation and/or hypomethylation. Membrane transporters such as GLUT1 and ion channels like Na(2+), Ca(2+), K(+), and Cl(−) become overexpressed. Further, the α-subunit of ATP synthase plays a role in cancer cells growth and development by providing them enhanced nutritional requirements. Currently, selenomethionine is also used as a prodrug in cancer therapy along with enzyme methionase that converts prodrug into active toxic chemical(s) that causes death of cancerous cells/tissue. More recently, fusion protein (FP) consisting of L-methionase linked to annexin-V has been used in cancer therapy. The fusion proteins have advantage that they have specificity only for cancer cells and do not harm the normal cells. |
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