Alex Cox
School of Pharmacy and Bioengineering
The Anti-proliferative Effects of Combretastatin Derivatives
The advancement of cancer therapeutics relies not just on the discovery of new targets but also improving the efficacy of existing drugs . Understanding the exact mechanism of action of therapeutic agents allows us to find rate limiting factors and tumour means of evasion , which can be mitigated through combination with other therapeutics . Combretastatins are one such family of broad-acting chemotherapeutic drugs that inhibit cell growth . Our research has focused on elucidating the cytotoxic effects of novel combretastatin derivatives ( RJP1 and RJP2 ) in breast cancer . Both combretastatin compounds reduced cell viability following 48-hour treatment , although RJP2 was more potent ; acting more broadly at a lower IC50 . In the BT549 cell line , the IC50 was slightly lower than the Combretastatin A-4 control . Repeated treatment with RJP2 effectively reduced cell viability and also suppressed colony formation following a single dose . Throughout these experiments , RJP2 acted at a much lower concentration in triple negative breast cancer cell lines ( 231 and BT549 ). Through cytometry analysis this appears to be the result of inducing cell death . So far , RJP2 has shown promising results but questions remain . Further work will look into cell cycle progression and assessing the release of nitric oxide as a secondary cytotoxic action .
Postgraduate Conference 2021 Page 18