Healthy cells have an inherent process which make them self-destroy if something wrong is detected - but cancer cells don't. Scientists from the University of Illinois have found a way of making cancer cells commit suicide by using a synthetic molecule. The researchers say this breakthrough could offer an effective way of treating people with cancer by stopping it in its tracks.

You can read about this in Nature Chemical Biology.

It is precisely this, cancer cells' resistance to self-destruction, which allows them to develop into tumours. All other cells contain procaspase-3, an enzyme. Our bodies turn this into caspase-3. Caspase-3 is an enzyme which tells the cell to self-destruct.

The scientists wanted to see if they could find a molecule which would trigger the transformation of procaspase-3 into caspase-3. They looked at tens of thousands of synthetic compounds. Eventually they came across PAC-1. They tried it out on mice and human tumours and found the cancer cells committed suicide.

If cancer cells commit suicide, basically they cannot turn into tumours or spread.

They also found this synthetic chemical had no bad effects on healthy cells - it did not make them commit suicide at a higher rate than they already do in healthy individuals. Cancer cells are two thousand times more sensitive to PAC-1 than non-cancerous cells (other healthy cells).

Human trials will have to be carried out before we know whether this potential treatment has any undesirable side-effects.

Small-molecule activation of procaspase-3 to caspase-3 as a personalized anticancer strategy
Karson S Putt, Grace W Chen, Jennifer M Pearson, Joseph S Sandhorst, Martin S Hoagland, Jung-Taek Kwon, Soon-Kyung Hwang, Hua Jin, Mona I Churchwell, Myung-Haing Cho, Daniel R Doerge, William G Helferich and Paul J Hergenrother Nature Chemical Biology
Published online: 27 August 2006 | doi:10.1038/nchembio814
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