Angiocidin Forces Leukemia Cells to Behave like Normal White Blood Cells

Cancer researchers have shown that angiocidin, a potent agent for the treatment of solid tumors, may also have a role as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of leukemia.

Angiocidin is a multi-domain protein that exerts its antiangiogenic activity through multiple mechanisms, including effects on cell matrix interaction. In the current study, investigators at Temple University (Philadelphia, PA, USA) used the monocytic cell line THP-1 to show that angiocidin could induce the cells to become adherent and phagocytic, express macrophage markers, and secrete matrix metalloproteinase-9. Although the cells had genetically transformed into cancer cells, angiocidin forced them to express the phenotype of normal white blood cells.
"This indicates perhaps a new therapeutic application for this protein; that it could differentiate hematologic malignancies into a normal-like state, allowing them for chemotherapy because normal cells are susceptible to chemotherapy treatment, said senior author Dr. George Tuszynski, professor of biology at Temple University. "Angiocidin must remain present with the differentiated cells or they will revert back to their leukemia phenotype. We have not repaired the genetic abnormality in the cell, but what we have done is push them into a more normal phenotype that could then be treated more easily.”

"Angiocidin is a protein that has a lot of anticancer activity and inhibits angiogenesis, a physiological process involving the growth of new blood vessels from preexisting vessels, which is a fundamental step in the transition of tumors from a dormant state to a malignant state,” said Dr. Tuszynski. "We did gene array analysis of the differentiated versus the undifferentiated cells and we discovered that there were many genes characteristic of immune cells that were up-regulated in the differentiated leukemia cells. That angiocidin can stimulate differentiation and stimulate the immune system is basically a new activity that we discovered with this protein that we had never really anticipated before.”


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