{"id":157610,"date":"2022-04-15T09:00:25","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T19:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=157610"},"modified":"2022-04-14T10:39:20","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T20:39:20","slug":"peptide-active-against-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/04\/15\/peptide-active-against-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"UH<\/abbr> researcher identifies peptide active against certain cancers"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"man
Shugeng Cao in his lab.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> researcher has identified a rare bacterium that is active against certain cancers. The bacterium, Lentzea flaviverrucosa<\/em>, that produces petrichorin A, was discovered by Shugeng Cao<\/strong>, associate member of the Cancer Biology Program<\/a> at the UH<\/abbr> Cancer Center<\/a>, and co-investigators Chunshun Li<\/strong> and Xiaohua Wu<\/strong>, in collaboration with Joshua Blodgett of Washington University in St. Louis. The research team proved that petrichorin A is active against cancers such as ovarian cancer, fibrosarcoma, prostate cancer and T-cell leukemia. <\/p>\n

These findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America<\/a><\/em>. <\/p>\n

Petrichorin A is a peptide that contains special amino acids, and each amino acid has a nitrogen-nitrogen bond. Petrichorin A, a dumbbell-like natural product, was evaluated for anti-cancer activity against multiple cancer cell lines. The researchers conducted a preliminary test and discovered that petrichorin A was not toxic to a normal human cell line. With this observation, his team proved that petrichorin A was active against ovarian cancer, fibrosarcoma, prostate cancer and T-cell leukemia. This highlighted the importance of including petrichorin A in future research of pharmaceutical design and discovery programs. <\/p>\n

“Cancer is the second leading cause of death in Hawai\u02bbi and nationally, after cardiovascular disease,” said Cao. “If petrichorin A were developed successfully, people in Hawai\u02bbi and the Pacific would benefit from our drug therapies.”<\/p>\n

Cao currently serves as a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy<\/a> (DKICP<\/abbr>) at UH<\/abbr> Hilo<\/a>. Wu is a senior research associate at DKICP<\/abbr>, and Li, a previous postdoctoral fellow in Cao\u2019s lab, is a scientist at Antheia, Inc.<\/p>\n

This research is an example of UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s goal of Excellence in Research: Advancing the Research and Creative Work Enterprise<\/a> (PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), one of four goals identified in the 2015–25 Â鶹´«Ã½<\/a> (PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), updated in December 2020. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The team proved that petrichorin A is active against cancers such as ovarian cancer, fibrosarcoma, prostate cancer and T-cell leukemia. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[218,52,1467,1363,158,169,14,9],"class_list":["post-157610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-cancer","tag-college-of-pharmacy","tag-manoa-excellence-in-research","tag-manoa-research","tag-publication","tag-uh-cancer-center","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157610"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157714,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157610\/revisions\/157714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}