location：home -> NE -> content

Combination Peptide Therapies Might Offer More Effective, Less Toxic Cancer Treatment

Two studies suggest that two peptide agents used either together or individually with a low-dose of a standard chemotherapy drug might offer more effective cancer therapy than current standard single-drug treatments.

The studies used animal models of breast cancer to show that the peptide combinations dramatically delay tumor onset and progression by both inhibiting tumor growth and blocking the formation of new tumor blood vessels, say researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center -- Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC -- James). In addition, the treatments caused few side effects.

The findings are described in two papers published online in the journalOncoImmunology. The first paper describes how vaccination with a HER2 peptide followed by treatment with a VEGF peptide inhibitor prevents tumor formation in a transplantable mammary tumor model. The second paper documents how either HER2 peptide or VEGF peptide treatment combined with low-dose paclitaxel effectively kills tumor cells in both the transplantable tumor model and a transgenic mammary tumor model.

"For treating cancer, combination therapies are much more effective than individual therapies, and peptides in combination, whether by vaccination or as therapy, appear to be safer, nontoxic, and taking us closer to a cure," says principle investigator Dr. Pravin Kaumaya, director of the division of vaccine development at the OSUCCC -- James.

Kaumaya, who is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, of molecular and cellular biochemistry, and of microbiology at Ohio State, led the research that developed the peptide agents. Peptides are short chains of amino acids, and the HER2 peptide and VEGF peptide are short amino-acid chains that mimic full-length HER2 and VEGF molecules.

The HER2 receptor molecule is important for controlling tumor growth in many cancers; the VEGF receptor molecule controls the formation of new blood vessels needed to feed tumors. Both molecules are overexpressed in many cancers.