Identification and structural analysis of an L-asparaginase enzyme from guinea pig with putative tumor cell killing properties.

ABSTRACT: The initial observation that guinea pig serum kills lymphoma cells marks the serendipitous discovery of a new class of anti-cancer agents. The serum cell killing factor was shown to be an enzyme with L-asparaginase (ASNase) activity. As a direct result of this observation, several bacterial L-asparaginases were developed and are currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of the subset of hematological malignancies that are dependent on the extracellular pool of the amino acid asparagine. As drugs, these enzymes act to hydrolyze asparagine to aspartate, thereby starving the cancer cells of this amino acid. Prior to the work presented here, the precise identity of this guinea pig enzyme has not been reported in the peer-reviewed literature. We discovered that th

SUBMITTER: Schalk AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4246078 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature