A lectin from wheat, wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), has the potential to help target anticancer agents to tumour cells Vanya Bogoeva and colleagues from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Sophia University have found.
One of the issues with current anticancer drugs, such as cis-platin, is that they are non-specific to tumour tissue, and so can cause severe side effects by destroying normal cells. WGA can recognise cancer cells, and is taken up by them – it also has a high affinity for four metal-based anticancer agents: cisplatin, a Pt porphyrin and two gold porphyrins and therefore may have potential as a drug delivery molecule for metal-based anticancer drugs.
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Characterization of metalloanticancer capacity of an agglutinin from wheat
Vanya P. Bogoeva, Lidiya P. Petrova, Ivan B. Ivanov, Hristina N. Kulina and Ivan Ch. Buchvarov
DOI: 10.1039/C2MB25186H
