A team of researchers, led by professor WANG Hui, at the Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (INS), found that a novel iron chelator, TSC24 (thiosemicarbazone-24) is highly effective for suppressing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) both in vitro and in xenograft mouse models.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies worldwide, ranking as the fifth most common cancer and the third most common cause of cancer-related death in the world. Iron is essential for both normal and cancer cells and excessive iron accumulation is a cause of HCC. Thus it can be speculated that depriving cancer cells of iron could be an approach for HCC treatment. This study found that TSC24 caused iron deprivation by chelating iron, disrupting iron uptake, and impairing iron regulation. Iron deprivation, in turn, induces cell-cycle arrest by regulating G2/M checkpoint proteins and induces apoptosis through caspase-dependent pathway to suppress tumor.
This research entitled "Iron Deprivation Suppresses Hepatocellular Carcinoma Growth in Experimental Studies" was published in Clinical Cancer Research on November 3, 2011.
CONTACT:
WANG Hui, Professor
Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
Phone: 86.21.5492.0941;
Fax: 86.21.5492.0291;
E-mail: huiwang@sibs.ac.cn
Location: 
