New LAT1 inhibitor can boost cancer treatment

We just got accepted a paper, in which our compound, a LAT1-inhibitor (published for the first time in 2016) was studied further. In this just-released paper, we found that our compound is hemocompatible, meaning it is safe in systemic circulation and doesn't cause any blood clotting and unwanted effects on the endothelial cells of the blood vessels. However, since cancer cells require an increased amount of amino acids for their growth, blocking the amino acid supply can be a powerful option to starve cancer cells. L-type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) delivers large and neutral amino acids, and thus by inhibiting its function we were able to induce the programmed death of cancer cells. In this paper, we showed that this apoptosis was mediated via inhibition of cell signaling pathways that include mTOR and NF-KB protein production. Although being effective alone, we still think that this compound is most efficacious if used with another anti-cancer drug, since cancer cell have always ways to circumvent the problems they face! Meaning that there is also another way to get these essential amino acids, which cancer cells may start to use if the primary supply is blocked. Therefore, these secondary supplies should be blocked at the same time, like we did in this study with bestatin, amino acid peptidase inhibitor, a compound that inhibits enzymes that can cut down amino acids from the peptides. One of the most important findings in this study was, however, that this LAT1-inhibitor did not affect amino acid content in the brain. Since LAT1 is highly expressed in the brain in addition to cancer cells, there is always a risk, that this kind of inhibition could lead to unwanted side effects in the central nervous system. However, we showed for the first time herein, that that this inhibition did not affect the amount of essential amino acids in the brain. The paper is open access release, and can be read from the following link:

Hemocompatible LAT1-inhibitor can induce apoptosis in cancer cells without affecting brain amino acid homeostasis

As there has been a lot of focus around the new possible COVID-19 treatments and vaccinations, I decided to make a press release of this exciting compound (link below). 

Press release at UEF www-site of LAT1 inhibitor

And what usually happens, one thing leads to another and I was invited to discuss cancer drug development in our smart cafe podcast on Tuesday 2nd of June (the advertisement below). Unfortunately, this podcast is only in Finnish, but the funny thing is that the development of novel cancer treatments is only half of the discussion, the other half we bill filled by COVID-19 vaccination by Prof. Seppo Ylä-Herttuala. And the funniest thing is that Seppo knows more than me about clinical cancer drug development, but obviously, they wanted to have a young female representative with an early pre-clinical point of view. At least, I hope, since that's what they are going to get! :)