The research group of Associate Professor Mai Hashikawa of Fukuoka University Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, "Specific accumulation in metastatic cancer," "improvement of cell membrane permeability," and "safety," are the characteristics of "three birds with one stone." Succeeded in developing a new nucleic acid drug equipped with.
Nucleic acid drug refers to a drug composed of a "nucleic acid" represented by deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA) as a basic skeleton.Nucleic acid drugs are also expected to be useful for the treatment of intractable metastatic cancer, and are expected to reduce side effects more than conventional anticancer drugs, molecular target drugs, and immune checkpoint inhibitors.
However, it has not been put into practical use because the "targeting" technology that efficiently delivers nucleic acid drugs only to cancer cells has not been established.Further, since nucleic acid does not easily pass through the cell membrane, it is also desired to develop a container (drug carrier) for improving the cell membrane permeability of the nucleic acid drug.
Professor Hashikawa and his group, who have been engaged in research and development of new nucleic acid drugs aimed at solving these two problems, have now focused on the exosomes produced by cancer cells.Exosomes are granular substances wrapped in a lipid bilayer membrane and are produced by cells. In particular, exosomes produced by cancer cells have the property of easily accumulating specifically in metastatic organs.In other words, if exosomes are recovered from the blood components of cancer patients and nucleic acids are encapsulated therein, it is considered to be a nucleic acid drug capable of efficiently delivering the drug to the metastasis destination of cancer.
This group extracted exosomes from the blood components of cancer model mice and developed a drug encapsulating nucleic acid, and confirmed that it exerts a therapeutic effect superior to existing drugs in animal experiments for cancer metastasis.
With this technology, in addition to clearing the issues of (XNUMX) specific accumulation in metastatic cancer and (XNUMX) improvement of cell membrane permeability, it is possible to design a safe drug with low antigenicity because it uses its own component as a drug material. It will be realized.It is said that this product can suppress side effects that are a concern with anticancer drugs in terms of using nucleic acids, and is expected to be put into practical use as an innovative cancer treatment method.
