A substance from crocuses can be a universal weapon against cancer
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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A poisonous alkaloid from crocuses called colchicine can prove to be a universal weapon against cancer. Researchers have found a way to set it on a cancerous tumor so that it does not kill healthy tissues at the same time.
British scientists are not lagging behind their Arab colleagues: while the latter are studying the anti-cancer properties of seed saffron, researchers at the University of Bradford report a universal medicine against tumors, which they managed to create with autumnal (or autumn crocus) autumn crocus. The flower, which, by the way, is the closest relative of the saffron seed, contains the alkaloid colchicine. A substance, long known for its anti-inflammatory and other healing properties, strongly suppresses cell division. However, once ingested, it can kill not only cancerous cells, but also healthy ones.
The essence of the work of scientists was, of course, not to get colchicine from the most common plant in the British Isles, but in finding a way to target the alkaloid to the tumor. Fortunately, the researchers managed to get the cancer to poison themselves.
The tumor is spread by matrix metalloproteinase. These enzymes literally clear the free space for the growing tumor, destroying the interaction between healthy cells and intercellular matrix proteins; the growth of blood vessels directly depends on them, which means that the tumor is fully supplied with nutrients and oxygen.
Researchers sewn to the colchicine protein makeweight, which suppressed its toxic properties. In this form, colchicine was absolutely harmless. But, having arrived in the cancerous area, a tumor metalloproteinase cut a hybrid molecule, colchicine burst free and stopped the growth of blood vessels and tumors. As experiments have shown, the drug effectively suppressed the growth of tumors of several types of cancer (breast, lung, prostate and others) without any side effects. In some experiments in mice, complete remission of the tumor was observed after only one dose of the drug.
The researchers told about the results of their many years of work at the British Science Festival.
All this can not but inspire optimism: such a medicine, be it created, would become a universal response against the lion's share of cancer tumors, regardless of their origin. To begin clinical trials, scientists plan for a year.
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