Amphibian skin secretions can reveal amazing medicinal properties

Frog-skin cures

Frogs place in culture ranges from the wise, to the prince in disguise. But it's the idea that a frog can produce life-saving medicine that's currently the subject of an international research project involving Professor Chris Shaw and colleagues at Queen's University Belfast, in Northern Ireland. They have discovered proteins in frog skins that could be used to treat cancer, diabetes, strokes and transplant patients by regulating the growth of blood vessels.

The team is in a race against time as the number of frog species is rapidly declining. Collecting proteins from our amphibian friends is carried out with no danger to the frog. Only a minute amount of the skin secretion is needed to create the growing bank of biological data needed to build up our understanding of these naturally occurring medicines.

Protein regulators

Already, Shaw's team have found that the peptides (mini-proteins) collected from the Waxy Monkey Frog and the Giant Firebellied Toad can be used in a controlled and targeted way to regulate 'angiogenesis', the process by which blood vessels grow in the body.  Professor Shaw explains that by 'switching off' angiogenesis and inhibiting blood vessel growth, a protein from the Waxy Monkey Frog can stop the blood vessels from growing and make the tumour less likely to spread and may eventually kill it. This has the potential to transform cancer from a terminal illness into a manageable condition.

He has found another protein from the Giant Firebellied Toad that can 'switch on' angiogenesis and stimulate blood vessel growth. This process can be developed to treat diseases and conditions that require blood vessels to repair quickly, such as wound healing, organ transplants, diabetic ulcers, and damage caused by strokes or heart conditions.

Race against time

Shaw's award winning research is in collaboration with Professor Pingfan Rao, in the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Fuzhou in Fujian Province, China. They are recruiting research students to extend the scope of their project. They need to collect and test as many samples of frog skin peptides as they can. New peptides, with undiscovered therapeutic properties remain in the wild, but for how much longer?