MONTREAL, Oct. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ - Sunshine Biopharma Inc. (OTCBB: SBFM), a development stage pharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and commercialization of drugs for the treatment of various forms of cancer, today announced that it has completed a study in which the ability of Adva-27a, its lead compound, to inhibit the activity of Topoisomerase II was measured directly. Topoisomerase II is an enzyme that is overproduced in aggressive cancer cells which gives them the ability to grow rapidly. In multi-drug resistant breast cancer, the gene that encodes Topoisomerase II has been found to be amplified as much as 10-fold thereby allowing these cancer cells to make tens of thousands of Topoisomerase II molecules. Effective inhibition of Topoisomerase II activity would arrest the ability of cancer cells to multiply rapidly and spread.
In the present study the ability of Adva-27a to inhibit Topoisomerase II was measured in a concentration dependent fashion using highly purified, human Topoisomerase II alpha and concatenated plasmid DNA as a substrate. The results showed that Adva-27a is an excellent inhibitor of Topoisomerase II. Inhibition of 50% of Topoisomerase II activity (IC50) took place at a concentration of only 13.7 micromolar Adva-27a.
“An IC50 of 13.7 micromolar indicates that Adva-27a is an excellent inhibitor of Topoisomerase II”, said Dr. Steve N. Slilaty, Sunshine’s President and CEO. “Compounds displaying IC50’s in the 75 to 100 micromolar range cannot be developed into effective drugs as the amounts which would have to be administered to patients would be too toxic. We are delighted to find that our compound has such low IC50. This is a significant milestone in our continued development of Adva-27a”, he added.
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SOURCE SUNSHINE BIOPHARMA INC.