Thanks to a leap forward in synthetic biology, the plant-derived chemotherapy vinblastine has a new source

Saccharomyces cerevisiae, also known as brewer’s yeast, is seen under a microscope. This species is used around the world to make food and beverages. Easily cultured with a well-known genome, the species has also become a favorite of synthetic biologists for making natural products that are difficult to obtain from their native sources. 

Newswise — The supply of a plant-derived anti-cancer drug can finally meet global demand after a team of scientists from Denmark and the U.S. engineered yeast to produce the precursor molecules, which could previously only be obtained in trace concentrations in the native plant. A study describing the breakthrough was published today in Nature. 

“The yeast platform we developed will allow environmentally friendly and affordable production of vinblastine and the more than 3,000 other molecules that are in this family of natural products,” said project co-leader Jay Keasling, a senior faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and scientific director at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability (DTU Biosustain). “In addition to vinblastine, this platform will enable production of anti-addiction and anti-malarial therapies as well as treatments for many other diseases.” Keasling is a biochemical engineer who helped launch the now-booming field of synthetic biology when his team successfully transferred the genetic pathway to produce an antimalarial drug, artemisinin, from an herb called sweet wormwood to the laboratory workhorse microbe, E. coli. He is also a professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at UC Berkeley. 

The illustration shows a cancer cell (center) surrounded by immune T-cells augmented with an oncolytic (cancer-fighting) virus. A new study describes how a combination of immunotherapy and virotherapy, using myxoma virus, provides new hope for patients with treatment resistant cancers.

By Richard Harth

The immune system has evolved to safeguard the body from a wildly diverse range of potential threats. Among these are bacterial diseases, including plague, cholera, diphtheria and Lyme disease, and viral contagions such as influenza, Ebola virus and SARS CoV-2.

Despite the impressive power of the immune system’s complex defense network, one type of threat is especially challenging to combat. This arises when the body’s own native cells turn rogue, leading to the phenomenon of cancer. Although the immune system often engages to try to rid the body of malignant cells, its efforts are frequently thwarted as the disease progresses unchecked.The illustration shows a cancer cell (center) surrounded by immune T-cells augmented with an oncolytic (cancer-fighting) virus. A new study describes how a combination of immunotherapy and virotherapy, using myxoma virus, provides new hope for patients with treatment resistant cancers. 

In new research appearing in the journal Cancer Cell, corresponding authors Grant McFadden, Masmudur Rahman and their colleagues propose a new line of attack that shows promise for treatment-resistant cancers.

The approach involves a combination of two methods that have each shown considerable success against some cancers. The study describes how oncolytic virotherapy, a technique using cancer-fighting viruses, can act in concert with existing immunotherapy techniques, boosting the immune capacity to effectively target and destroy cancer cells.