据加拿大《明报》报道，加拿大安省京士顿(Kingston)皇后大学(Queen's University)的华裔研究员领导的加拿大小组，在实验室研究一种分子与抗乳癌药物合用的功效，意外发现分子有大大激发药力的功能。
研究人员希望研发分子疗法，配合传统抗乳癌药物，给有抗药性的乳癌病人使用，加强药物功效。皇后大学的科学家说，他们研制的ANK缩氨酸(peptide)，与一些抗癌药如紫杉醇(taxol) 、诺考达唑(nocodazole)合用，疗效比单独用药强3.5倍。
此项研究的报告在15日的《癌症研究》(Cancer Research)期刊网络版发表，该种缩氨酸已申请了1项美国专利。
皇后大学结构生物学研究讲座华裔教授贾宗超(Zongchao Jia)15日说，这种缩氨酸本身不是药物，就像咖啡加奶油，味道会更好，缩氨酸会促进目前最广泛应用乳腺癌药物的功效。这对于那些有严重抗药问题的患者将非常有用。
贾宗超的研究小组将缩氨酸与标准药物合并，放入装有乳癌细胞的培养皿，进行效力测试，他们也单独使用药物测试。经过测试发现，添加缩氨酸的药物，比不加缩氨酸药物杀死的癌细胞多3.5倍。
不过，贾宗超指出，现在只是研究早期阶段，结果只限于实验室实验，下一步会在实验室老鼠身上实验。如果成功，他们会进入人体测试，这个过程可能需时几年。
英文原文：
Queen's discovery provides new hope for people with advanced breast cancer
A surprising discovery by Queen's University researchers that happened when their work took an unexpected turn may help women with advanced breast cancer respond better to conventional drug treatments.
The Queen's team's findings, to be published on-line today in the international journal Cancer Research, show that a newly discovered "peptide" molecule (a chain of amino acids smaller than a protein) increases the effectiveness by 350 per cent of drugs used to kill breast cancer cells.
Drs. Zongchao Jia and Vinay Singh, of the Queen's Department of Biochemistry, initially intended to study the structure of a protein called SNCG which is implicated in drug resistance in breast cancer. When unraveling the structure proved more difficult than expected, the research team looked to a similar protein associated with Alzheimer's Disease.
They were looking for "binding partners" of the Alzheimr's protein, hoping to learn how the structures of the Alzheimer protein and SNCG were held together. From this information, they were able to design a completely new peptide, which blocked SNCG's interaction with another protein, counteracting the resistance to cancer drugs. "We were excited to find that it actually can reduce anti-cancer drug resistance by three-and-a-half times," says Dr. Jia, Canada Research Chair in Structural Biology.
Noting that the peptide itself is not a drug, Dr. Jia likens it to an ingredient in the kind of "drug cocktails" used to treat HIV/AIDS. "It has to be used in combination with a drug to be effective," he says. "In the same way that cream flavors coffee to make it taste better, the peptide enhances the effectiveness of the most widely-used breast cancer drugs today."
"We greatly hope this will not only increase the positive response from patients but also will make the current drug more useful by extending its impact to a wider range of people, particularly those with a resistance problem," says Dr. Jia.
"The whole discovery 'morphed' from something entirely different. In a basic research lab like ours, this is as close as we get to treatment for a disease," says Dr. Jia, whose mother has breast cancer. "It just shows that once in a while basic science leads to discoveries that are useful in everyday life!" he adds.
Next, Dr. Jia hopes to team up with other researchers to advance the work to the point where they can transform the peptide, called ANK, into a suitable form for "drug cocktail" therapy. A U.S. patent application has been filed for this discovery through PARTEQ Innovations, the university's technology transfer office.
