Use Of Novel Peptide, ATAP, For Inducing Cancer Cell Death May Be More Successful Than Current Peptide-Based Therapies

Researchers from UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School have discovered a novel peptide that can act as a potent inducer of cancer cell death, which may have significant implications for therapeutic agents used to treat cancer. Their study indicates that the amphipathic tail-anchoring peptide, or ATAP, may provide more successful outcomes in cancer treatment than the BH3 peptide-based therapy currently used. The study was released online December 28, 2010, as a Paper of the Week in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.


Recent advances in cancer research have focused on the use of peptides to initiate apoptosis, or the death of cancer cells. Bcl-2 homology domain-3 (BH3) peptides are potent therapeutic agents that are currently used in cancer treatment. However, BH3-based therapy has some limitations, as cancer cells often acquire resistance to treatment by producing anti-apoptic proteins that inhibit this type of treatment. In studying alternate strategies to induce cancer cell death, the researchers discovered that ATAP was unaffected by anti-apoptic proteins and could successfully induce the death of cancer cells that are resistant to BH3-mediated therapy.


"Our study indicates that ATAP has a potential advantage over BH3 peptides as a therapeutic agent for cancer because it evades anti-apoptic proteins that cause cancer tumors to become resistant to therapy," said Dr. Jianjie Ma, PhD, professor and interim chair of physiology and biophysics at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. "This novel discovery has implications for improving peptide-based therapy in the treatment of cancer."


Dr. Ma led the study in collaboration with Jialing Lin, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City. The research was supported in part with a grant from the National Institutes of Health.


Source: Robert Wood Johnson Medical School