Published on October 25, 2005 at 6:20 AM
Helix BioPharma announced today the publication of a scientific paper in the Journal of Experimental Therapeutics and Oncology (volume 5, number 2, pp. 93-99), entitled "Urease-induced alkalinization of extracellular pH and its antitumour activity in human breast and lung cancers."
The paper describes the novel approach of eliminating tumour cells through a combination of pH augmentation and ammonia toxicity. A significant number of human tumours are known to possess an acidic microenvironment as a result of tumour metabolism and physiology. There is also evidence in the literature that suggests that an acidic tumour microenvironment encourages tumour invasion and metastasis. Furthermore, this acidic microenvironment has also been previously shown to function as a barrier to a number of well known chemotherapeutics which are weakly basic in solution, causing the reduction of their therapeutic efficacy. In the present publication, DOS47 is shown to be able to neutralize this hostile microenvironment and promote a potent tumouricidal effect through the breakdown of urea, a metabolite naturally produced by the human body.
Research highlights described in the paper include the effects of DOS47 on cultured breast and lung cancer cells. Model animal studies demonstrating the effectiveness of DOS47 are also presented. As well, DOS47 is demonstrated to significantly potentiate the efficacy in cultured cancer cells of a number of chemotherapeutics including doxorubicin and vinblastine, which are used to treat breast and lung cancer patients.
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