Hello colleagues and friends,
Proteases are extremely important signalling molecules that are involved in numerous vital processes like apoptosis, cell growth and activation, adhesion, invasion, cell migration and metastasis, protein secretion, cellular interactions and signal transduction, phagocytosis and angiogenesis. However, it has been shown that proteases play an important role as procancer and anticancer. thus, researchers are looking for proteases Inhibitors that may lead to a promising therapeutic uses in the treatment of cancer.
My question is the following:
could the proteases derived-plants (exogenous protease) such as Ficin isolated from Fig Latex play a role in cancer cell death via inhibiting the proteases which induce cell growth, invasion and metastasis such as cathepsin B, L, S, and K (endogenous) and increasing the activity of pro-apoptotic proteases including caspases!!!??
Thank you for your response and help...
fouzia
Hi Fouzia, indeed proteinases and their inhibitors have profound roles in normal and abnormal cell physiology.
The problem is that the above mentioned cysteine proteinases are intracellular and to my knowledge there is no known way of specifically getting exogenously administered plant cysteine proteinases into cells, let alone animal cancer models.
Dear Steingrimur Stefansson ,
Thank you for your response, I've been confused about the role of plant cysteine protease in cancer. However, I can understand that plant cysteine proteases may play an inhibitory role of intracellular proteases inducing cancer??!!
I cannot give you a straight answer. However I think that protease inhibitors have a place in cancer treatment. For example nelfinavir.
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