Precise photopharmacological eradication of metastatic tumor cells.

ABSTRACT: Owing to their high efficacy, antimitotic chemotherapeutics are the mainstay for most cancer treatments. However, these drugs do not discriminate between tumor and healthy cells, thus show dose-limiting toxicity and severe adverse effects. To improve treatments, rendering chemotherapeutics tumor-cell specific is highly desirable. Although various strategies, such as targeted antibody-drug conjugates, aim to achieve this goal, the identification of a tumor-specific 'Achilles' heel' remains a challenge. Here, we followed an alternative approach, which does not rely on tumor-specific characteristics, but rather uses spatially confined illumination of the light-activatable microtubule inhibitor SBTubA4P to target its cytotoxic activity to tumor cells. We demonstrate that localized illumination

SUBMITTER: Varady A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11892682 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature