UW-Whitewater: Chemistry professor finds clues for future cancer drugs

Contact: Anita Clark

262-472-1193

clarka@uww.edu

Christopher Veldkamp, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, has published research in a top scientific journal that could lead to new cancer drugs.

It is well known that primary cancer tumors are often treatable with higher success rates than metastatic disease, cancer that has spread to other locations in the body. Metastases occur when cancer cells break away from the initial or primary tumor and go on to develop new tumors in other organs and tissues, which often include the bone marrow, liver, lungs and lymph nodes.

Veldkamp studies CXCL12, which is a small protein called a chemokine that is produced in these tissues and attracts the metastasizing cancer cells by activating a receptor on the cancer cell surface.

This mechanism of cancer cells spreading from one location in the body to another is thought to be involved in the metastasis of over 23 types of cancer, including breast, colon and prostate cancer. Hence, CXCL12 is an attractive target for drug development.

By targeting this chemokine with drug-like molecules, Veldkamp and his fellow researchers looked for a way to prevent activation of the CXCR4 receptor, the receptor that tells cancer cells to migrate and spread.

This study describes the discovery of a molecule that binds to CXCL12, thereby preventing activation of the CXCR4 receptor. Future efforts will focus on finding improved molecules that could serve as effective therapeutics.

“That’s what we are trying to do here, to find clues that might help us discover a drug that could prevent cancers from spreading,” Veldkamp said.

The paper is titled “Targeting SDF-1/CXCL12 with a Ligand That Prevents Activation of CXCR4 through Structure-Based Drug Design.” It was published in The Journal of the American Chemical Society, a prestigious journal that publishes fundamental research in chemistry and biochemistry. Co-authors are Joshua Ziarek, Francis Peterson and Brian Volkman of the Medical College of Wisconsin and Yu Chen of the University of South Florida.