JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Cancer is the third leading cause of death in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after cardiovascular diseases and accidents. In UAE, colorectal cancer (CRC) is the first and fourth most common cancer in males and females respectively. Several treatment modalities have been employed for cancer treatment such as surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormone replacement therapy, and immunotherapy. These treatment modalities often elicit adverse effects on normal cells, causing toxic side effects. To circumvent these toxicities, there has been an increased impetus towards the identification of alternate treatment strategies. Animal venoms are veritable gold mines of pharmacologically active polypeptides and proteins.

Objective:

In this proof-of-concept study, we avail a high throughput “Venomics” strategy to identify and characterize anticancer bioactive peptides (BAP) from 20 different animal venoms specifically targeting CRC. We chose to focus on CRC as it is one of the foremost health issues in the UAE.

Methods:

In initial study, we will screen 2500 different peptides derived from 20 different animal venoms for anticancer activity specifically directed against three CRC cell lines and two control cell lines employing the MTT [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) colorimetric assay for cytotoxicity. Three venoms of the 20, which exhibited specific and potent anticancer activity directed against the three CRC cell lines will be selected; and from these three venoms the specific peptide(s) with anti-CRC activity will be isolated and characterized.

Results:

This study is at the protocol development stage only, and as such, no results are available.

Conclusions:

In summary, the proposed study will not only generate therapeutic leads to manage/treat one of the leading health issues in the UAE i.e., CRC, but is also of commercial interest as the identified BAP with specific anti-cancer activity against CRC can be patented for commercialization.