The benefits of RNA in curing cancer

Many techniques used to treat cancer lead to side effects and illnesses. For example, a majority of cancer drugs cause those cells that rapidly divide due to the fact that rapid cell division is known to result in the formation of cancer. However, rapid cell division is “a property of normal cells in the bone marrow, digestive tract, and hair follicles,” and if these cells are also killed, it will lead “to a host of debilitating side effects.”

Neils Pierce of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has developed a new method of killing cancer cells. Pierce’s main goal was to develop a therapy that did not result in side effects and create an innovative way of killing cancer cells using small RNA molecules. Pierce and his colleagues used a method using two types of small conditional RNA molecules, which are 30 base pairs in length. According to the researchers, one of the RNA molecules “is designed to be complementary to, and thus to bind to, an RNA sequence unique to a particular cancer cell.” The RNA hairpin then changes form by opening and exposing a sequence that can spontaneously bind to the second type of RNA hairpin that will bind to the cancer mutation; this process continues from one hairpin to the next.

“In this way, detection of the RNA cancer marker triggers the self-assembly of a long double-stranded RNA polymer.” In order to search for long double-stranded viral RNA in the human cells, they used a protein known as protein kinase R (PKR). If the protein is able to find the long double-stranded RNA in the cell, PKR will trigger the cells to undergo apoptosis, a cell death pathway to destroy the cell. The results of their study showed that small RNAs were able to “trick” the cancer cells to self-destruct.

Pierce concluded that small RNA molecules were advantageous due to the fact that they were useful in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease “one cell at a time.” However, further studies will need to be conducted in order to see if the small RNAs can be useful for the diagnosis in human patients.” Pierce’s approach to finding a way to “program” cancer cell death is beneficial to those diagnosed with cancer due to the fact that these patients would not have to be overwhelmed with the additional side effects that come about from cancer drugs and therapy.

Citation: California Institute of Technology. "Scientists create new process to 'program' cancer cell death." ScienceDaily, 8 Sep. 2010. Web. 28 May 2011.