Report: Could tobacco help cure cancer?

Monday 14 Sep 2015 - 11:42 Makkah mean time-1-12-1436

Himalayan mayapple plant (Image from dailymail)

California, (IINA) – Scientists in their latest researches believe that the tobacco plant could be modified to produce a cancer-fighting drug.
Etoposide is a chemotherapy drug used to treat tumours in the lung, ovaries, testes as well as lymphoma, Mail Online health news reported.
There is currently no way to produce Etoposide without one of its key ingredients, a compound called podophyllotoxin, which is found naturally in the rare Himalayan mayapple plant.
But now, scientists at Stanford University in California, believe they have managed to genetically engineer nicotiana benthamiana - the tobacco plant to create a new extract that outperforms one of the key ingredients needed to create Etoposide.
At the moment manufacturers of the drug rely on the endangered mayapple plant to extract podophyllotoxin, a vital ingredient. However, the mayapple grows very slowly and is only found in the Himalayas.
Instead, researchers focused on four genes that are known in the production of podophyllotoxin, and then analyzed genetic data of the mayapple to identify similar genes. They then manipulated a tobacco plant to express new genes, and identified the resulting compounds in leaf tissue.
In total, the authors identified six new genes that, combined with the original four, produce a new ingredient for Etoposide, desmethyl-epipodophyllotoxin.
Researchers said it outperforms podophyllotoxin as an ingredient for the chemotherapy drug.
Professor Elizabeth Sattely and her graduate student Warren Lau, of Stanford University, California, said podophyllotoxin, a chemical from Mayapple, is the natural precursor to Etoposide, which is 'used in dozens of chemotherapy regimens for a variety of malignancies.'
They have isolated the method by which they can recreate the ingredient in tobacco plants, and hope it could be applied to other plants.
The work, published in the journal Science, may lead to a more stable supply of the drug and allow scientists to make it even safer and more effective.
Many of the drugs we take today to treat pain, fight cancer or thwart disease were originally identified in plants, some of which are endangered or hard to grow. In many cases, those plants are still the primary source of the drug.
Professor Sattely said: 'People have been grinding up plants to find new chemicals and testing their activity for a really long time.
SM/IINA

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