China News Service, Shenzhen, June 17 (Zheng Xiaohong and Zhu Zuying) A reporter learned from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences on the 17th that Geng Jin, a researcher at the Polymer Medicine Research Center of the Institute of Medicine, Zhang Yichuan, a postdoctoral fellow, and Mark from the University of Edinburgh, UK Bradley and others have spent four years exploring the possibility of using medical radiotherapy X-ray sources to activate anti-tumor prodrugs, and proposed a new prodrug design plan that provides precise treatment for tumors. A new idea.

The latest research results of the research team were published in "Nature-Chemistry" recently.

  According to reports, while traditional chemotherapy drugs kill tumor cells, they also cause damage to normal cells and tissues, leading to common chemotherapy side effects such as hair loss, cardiotoxicity, and nephrotoxicity.

How to reduce the side effects of tumor treatment drugs and achieve precise tumor treatment?

Prodrug technology is considered to be an effective method to solve this problem.

  Geng Jin pointed out that in the process of chemical synthesis or biosynthesis of prodrugs, some of the drug molecules in the prodrug cannot be reduced to the prototype drug, and it is difficult to achieve a good therapeutic effect.

In order to remove the "sugar coating" of the prodrug and make the prodrug better transformed into a tumor treatment drug, it is necessary to find a prodrug molecular model that can be reduced to a tumor treatment drug.

  In response, the research team screened 32 small drug molecules and found that several types of molecules, including sulfonyl azide and fluoroaryl azide, can be efficiently converted into sulfonamides and aromatic amines under low-dose X-ray radiation.

The researchers introduced these types of active groups discovered into anti-tumor drugs, and successfully prepared corresponding prodrug molecular models that can be effectively converted into common anti-tumor drugs such as doxorubicin and pazopanib under X-ray stimulation. And fluorescent markers, and verified its pharmacological activity and biological safety in cell experiments and mouse experiments.

  In further mouse experiments, the researchers established cervical cancer models and colon cancer models and found that the combination of X-ray activation of the prodrug effectively reduced the side effects of doxorubicin on mice.

Geng Jin said that the prodrug molecules constructed by the research team can effectively reduce systemic toxicity while maintaining drug efficacy compared to prototype drugs, significantly prolonging the survival period of experimental animals.

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