Future+applications+of+DCC+in+cancer+therapies

Future Applications of DCC in Cancer Therapies

The efficiency with which DCC allows for interrogation of biomolecule surfaces and active sites, makes it ideally suited for responding to decreases in treatment efficacy, due to protein mutation. Targeting such proteins immunologically, in addition to using them as targets for chemo and radiotherapy delivery vehicles, may minimize cross-reactivity and ensure that only cancerous cells receive therapeutic adjuncts or are subjected to complement dependent cytotoxicity or antibody dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity. One of the challenges of such a scenario would be the rapidity with which such proteins mutate under such selective pressure [1].

Using DCC to assess changes in the structure of the target protein upon the onset of a decrease in therapeutic efficacy would conceivably allow clinicians to adjust the ligand molecule to match the changes in the target. Such flexibility in treatment is arguably a major step towards the personalization of cancer treatment. Cancer is a highly personalized disease. It is heterogeneous disease with significant differences in expression even when comparing patients with the same type and grade of tumour. This heterogeneity increases spontaneously as tumour life progresses and mutations occur with regularity.

Even if DCC is not used extensively in the identification and synthesis of cancer therapies, it can aid in the diagnosis of many diseases. As mentioned, many proteins are over expressed in cancer cells, such as the HER2 protein overexpression in 15% - 30% of breast cancers [2]. Overexpression of HER2 is a marker for poor prognosis in certain types of breast cancer and a potential indicator for tumour resistance to endocrine therapy [2]. As such, it is very important that HER2 overexpression be identified as rapidly as possible, something that is currently done via immunohistochemical methods [2]. In similar fashion DCC can be used to efficiently identify markers on the surface of diseased cells that might otherwise escape notice or prove difficult to elucidate once found.

It has been noted that some of the key challenges to personalized cancer therapies are our incomplete knowledge of tumour biology, disease-based versus target-based treatments, and one-size-fits-all drug therapy paradigms [2]. DCC is an interrogative technique that is ideally suited to assist in the growth and evolution of the field of cancer therapy, through interrogative elucidation of the biology of tumours, the identification of the appropriate molecular targets, and the efficient determination of immunological or small molecule ligands that are unique to each individual and respond to their personalized disease processes.

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