Research Highlights

• Subject Category:
  • Cell & molecular biology

Published online: 4 January 2012 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2012.1

Cancer biology: Ridding the seeds of evil

Felix Cheung

Introduction

Cancer stem cells have not only the ability to divide and grow into tumours, but also the ability to self-renew and produce more cancer stem cells. Although small in number, cancer stem cells are extremely difficult to kill, as they are resistant to radio- and chemotherapy.

Tao Ye at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hui Zhang and Junmin Quan at Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School and co-workers¹ have now identified a class of compounds that could inhibit the growth of cancer stem cells.

The researchers were originally looking for small inhibitors of LSD1, a histone demethylase that is highly expressed in many tumours. They developed nine structurally similar compounds that could inhibit the enzymatic activity of LSD1 in vitro — the most potent inhibitors were CBB1003 and CBB1007.

© (2011) AACR

The researchers tested CBB1003 and CBB1007 on a variety of cell lines and found that both compounds could inhibit the growth of cancer stem cells (see image), but had little effect on cancer cells or normal somatic cells. This result demonstrates the high specificity of CBB1003 and CB1007 for use in cancer stem cell treatment.

The authors of this work are from:
School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China; Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China; Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA; Nevada Cancer Institute, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

Reference

1. Wang, J. et al. Novel histone demethylase LSD1 inhibitors selectively target cancer cells with pluripotent stem cell properties. Cancer Res. 71, 7238–7249 (2011). | Article | PubMed | OpenURL | | ChemPort |