Blocking Copper To Fight Cancer

Abstract

Normal cells shuttle around copper ions to keep key processes, such as energy production in their mitochondria, running smoothly. But cancer cells also use copper trafficking to grow and spread. Jing Chen of Emory University School of Medicine, Hualiang Jiang of Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chuan He of the University of Chicago, and coworkers have now developed a selective way of blocking copper transport in cancer cells (Nat. Chem. 2015, DOI: 10.1038/nchem.2381). By screening a database of 200,000 druglike small molecules, the researchers discovered a promising compound, DC_AC50, for cancer treatment. They zeroed in on the compound by testing how well database hits inhibited a protein-protein interaction leading to copper transport and reduced proliferation of cancer cells. Scientists had already found a molecule, tetrathiomolybdate, that interferes with copper trafficking and have tested it in clinical trials against cancer. But tetrathiomolybdate is a copper chelator: It inhibits copper transp...