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Flipping the apoptosis switch Cancer cells manage to proliferate by evading the apoptosis, or programmed cell death, pathway. Two new studies describe molecules that help turn that pathway back on. In one study, Stanley J. Korsmeyer of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Gregory L. Verdine of Harvard University, and coworkers use a hydrocarbon bridge to stabilize a helical peptide that interacts with a protein in the apoptotic pathway [Science, 305, 1466 (2004)]. They use ,-disubstituted nonnatural amino acids with olefin tethers to create the "hydrocarbon staple" by ruthenium-catalyzed olefin metathesis. The stapled peptide induces apoptosis in human leukemia cells transplanted in mice. |
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