Tetrathiomolybdate, a copper-sequestering drug, effective against wilson disease
Tetrathiomolybdate – A copper-sequestering drug:
A study has revealed that Tetrathiomolybdate, a copper-sequestering drug, plays an important role in providing a treatment for Wilson disease, which is caused by an over accumulation of copper and metastatic cancers. Small info is available, however is known about how the drug works at the molecular level.
A fresh research study conducted and guided by the Northwestern University researchers now has provided a priceless clue i.e the three-dimensional structure of TM bound to copper loaded metallochaperones. The tetrathiomolybdate sequester the chaperone and its bound copper, forbidding both from carrying out their normal functions in the cell. For those patients suffering from Wilson disease and other cancers whose primary growth is helped by copper-dependent angiogenesis, this is very promising.
The knowledge gain from the above research provides a new direction and also opens the door for the development of new classes of Pharmaceutical agents depending on metal trafficking pathways, as well as further progress of more efficient TM based drugs.
“Essential metals are at the center of many emerging problems in health, medicine and the environment, and this work opens the door to new biological experiments,” said Thomas V. O’Halloran, the study’s senior author and the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern. He together with geneticist – Valeria Culotta of Johns Hopkins University discovered the first copper chaperone function in 1997.
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