more-in A new study is pointing to a natural compound that could do a better job as inhibitor of cancer cell growth than contemporary therapeutics. A research team at Pondicherry Central University led by R. Baskaran, Associate Professor, Department of Bio Chemistry and Molecular Biology, has found a natural compound that has proved more effective than the drugs of choice in the pharmaceutical world. In the recent issue of the Chemical Biology and Drug Design, Dr. Baskaran and others contend that the compound ZINC08764498 has shown selective killing activity on K-562 cells and no toxic effect on noncancerous cell line HEK-293. “We screened about 20,000 natural compounds and isolated two…our studies showed that one of these compounds is far more effective in managing blood cancer cells,” Dr. Baskaran said. The finding could potentially shake up the way leukaemia is treated as the discovered compound is natural (plant-derived) and has no toxicity, researchers said. Leukaemia is a cancer of white blood cells generated in the blood-forming bone marrow. Upon setting of this disease, the normal white blood cells lose their maturity and they grow indefinitely. They obscure normal cell death regulatory mechanism. Their number increases in the bone marrow and in peripheral blood. Upon progression, they relocate to other organs and prevent normal functioning of other cells. According to researchers, the main cause of this disease is reciprocal gene rearrangement and abnormal fusion protein Bcr-Abl, activates uncontrolled cell proliferation. Even though targeting the fusion gene product Bcr-Abl protein is a successful strategy determined by the drug imatinib, development of drug resistance and drug intolerance are currently the limitations for Bcr-Abl Targeted CML therapy. With an aim to develop natural Bcr-Abl inhibitors, researchers performed virtual screening (VS) of ZINC natural compound database by docking with Abl kinase using Glide software.

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