poisons against cancer cells

 poisons against cancer cells

Predators at floor level, with eight legs, pincers, and stingers. Scorpions are arachnids, as are spiders, ticks and mites, and use the poison from their tail as a method of attack and defense. That toxic cocktail is rich in substances with multiple functions and contains proteins that can be used to change the behavior of tumor cells.
As part of a project developed for 10 years, Demetrio Rodríguez Fajardo, an eighth-semester student of the Bachelor of Medicine of the University Center of Health Sciences (CUCS) of the University of Guadalajara (UdeG), analyzed the reaction of tumor cells of breast cancer before the application of scorpion venom toxins.

“What we did was look for scorpion venoms present in western Mexico, know their characteristics, understand the proteins that make them up and test their effects on human tumor cell lines to assess their influence on tumor cell growth or proliferation, as well as other parameters ”, indicates the student from Guadalajara.

Rodríguez Fajardo explains that this work addressed an in vitro study in breast cancer tumor cells, particularly in those with mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are involved in the fight against uncontrolled growth of cells in the body.

Once the Colima scorpion (Centruroides limpidus tecomanus) and Durango (Centruroides suffuses) venom proteins were identified, they were applied to in vitro models. Demetrio Rodríguez shares that he analyzed a type of protein that has the ability to block others involved in cell repair mechanisms.

In this way, the substance of the poison prevents cancer cells from continuing to duplicate: “There is a protein that as an effect inhibits a family of proteins that participate in cell repair mechanisms; by blocking what causes the cancer cell cannot replicate because it has no supplies to proliferate. ”

Alternatives in toxins

To know the effects of the proteins of the poison Demetrio Rodríguez applied them in vitro models. The student explains that in this investigation chromatographic methods were used; through which the components of the poison were separated so that they are subsequently administered on tumor cell lines.

"We focused on seeing how the development of these tumor cells reacted over time, compared to a control group and a group with a conventional oral chemotherapy treatment, and analyzed the effects on parameters such as cell growth and proliferation."
At the end of last year this project, “Characterization and identification of modular elements of the tumor response present in poisons from genus Centruroides with a predominance in the Central West of Mexico in a model of breast cancer”, was awarded the State Prize of Innovation,

Strengthening the scientific path

Demetrio Rodríguez is currently 23 years old, but remember that when he was in high school in one of his Biology classes, he talked about animal poisons, and although the class was not the best, the student confesses, it served to sow the doubt about Effects of these toxins.

The young researcher reports that in those times he lost who he considered his second mother, victim of breast cancer. Influenced by the loss, and convinced of wanting to do something against this disease, Demetrio Rodríguez recalled the class on poisons: If they were useful for destroying tissue, why not study its use against uncontrolled cell growth, he questioned.