Cancer can start almost anywhere in the human body, which is made up of trillions of cells. in controlling cellular fate, in-situ assembly of amphiphilic peptides with accompanying cellular functions inside a living cell (i.e., intracellular assembly) and their interaction with cellular components have been emerging as a versatile strategy. However, achieving spatiotemporal control (i.e., inside cellular organelles or other sub-compartments) over the self-assembly of synthetic molecules inside the cell is challenging because of the difficulty of studying their behaviors in the complex intracellular environment.
‘Cellular organelle-localization induced supramolecular self-assembly (OLISA) system offers a new approach for targeted cancer chemotherapy.’
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A recent study, affiliated with UNIST has developed a new method to target the mitochondria of a cancer cell. The research team expects that their study could pave way for new generation of anti-cancer drugs. This research has been led by Professor Ja-Hyoung Ryu of Chemistry at UNIST in collaboration with Sang Kyu Kwak of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST and Professor Eunji Lee of Graduate School of Analytical Science and Technology at Chungam National University. The results of the study have been appeared in the April 21th edition of Nature Communications.
In the study, the joint research team has introduced, for the first time, the organelle-localized self-assembly of a peptide amphiphile as a powerful strategy for controlling cellular fate.
Self-assembly is an equilibrium process between the individual building units and their aggregated state, and the concentration of the molecules should be over the critical value to induce assembly (i.e., the critical aggregation concentration (CAC). In living cells, achieving the CAC is also required to form assemblies of individual molecules, but has a limitation because the chemical complexity of cellular environments disrupts interactions among synthetic building units.
Intracellular self-assembly, thus, requires a higher concentration of the molecules than the CAC, which may limit the practical implementations of self-assembling molecules. Transformation of the molecular structure from hydrophilic to hydrophobic units inside the cell (or pericellular space) through external stimuli (chemical, or physical) is a powerful strategy to reduce the CAC by increasing the propensity for self-assembly. However, chemical and physical stimuli (e.g., light, temperature, pH, and redox) are not relevant for intracellular assembly because they induce severe damage to cell.
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"OLISA is more general and direct strategy for achieving intracellular assembly and is entirely novel, it is a promising approach for controlling the cellular fate like apoptosis, cell proliferation etc. and is a useful strategy for their in depth investigations" says professor Ryu.
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M.T. Jeena of Chemistry at UNIST, the lead author of the study expects the new method to set the foundations for a new series of treatments that could maximize the healing process while minimizing side effects.
Source-Eurekalert