[HN Gopher] Drug offers 'breakthrough' in treatment of asbestos-...
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       Drug offers 'breakthrough' in treatment of asbestos-linked cancer
        
       Author : sandebert
       Score  : 36 points
       Date   : 2024-02-15 19:52 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | Metacelsus wrote:
       | It's interesting how this drug works: by depleting arginine.
       | Apparently mesothelioma cells lose the ability to make arginine.
       | I wonder if a low-arginine diet would enhance the effect.
        
         | hammock wrote:
         | Your body usually synthesizes all the arginine it needs,
         | independent of dietary arginine
        
         | xkcd-sucks wrote:
         | ultimately whether it works or not is up to a pretty complex
         | network of kinetics, but low-arginine diet doesn't seem too
         | plausible because it can be shuttled around between cells to
         | some degree via plasma membrane transporters, produced to some
         | degree from proteolysis etc. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/sci
         | ence/article/pii/S002231662... etc)
         | 
         | the approach, which is actually kind of nuts, supports this
         | assumption: pegargiminase depletes _by destroying_ arginine
         | _directly_ ; it is fundamentally a super efficient arginine
         | oxidizer coated in lube, more or less
         | 
         | so it's like in principle most of your cells are making
         | arginine and to some degree puking it out, this drug is chewing
         | up all the free arginine floating around, the cells that can
         | synthesize it are cool but the cells that can't synthesize it
         | starve
        
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       (page generated 2024-02-15 23:01 UTC)