On June 15, 2023 bioAffinity Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: BIAF; BIAFW), a biotechnology company addressing the need for early-stage cancer detection and broad-spectrum cancer therapeutics, reported the poster "Vitamin B12 deprivation does not phenocopy selective cytotoxicity of CD320 and LRP2 silencing" at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) T.H. Chan Medical School’s fifth annual RNA Therapeutics Symposium June 21-23, 2023, in Worcester, MA (Press release, BioAffinity Technologies, JUN 15, 2023, View Source [SID1234632766]).
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The RNA Therapeutics Institute at UMass leverages RNA biology and clinical research to develop new therapeutics for multiple diseases based on the fundamental mechanisms of cellular RNAs.
David Elzi, Ph.D., Vice President of Research, and William Bauta, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Therapeutics, will discuss the Company’s recent work that demonstrated that deprivation of vitamin B12 does not play a role in the selective cytotoxicity of cancer cells observed after silencing the expression of two specific genes, CD320 and LRP2. The vitamin B12 research follows the Company’s discovery that using small interfering RNA (siRNA) to knock down CD320 and LRP2 killed cancer cells in vitro without harming healthy cells.
One of the functions of CD320 and LRP2 is to bind to and transport vitamin B12 into cells. Since they have that in common, Drs. Elzi and Bauta tested the hypothesis that eliminating vitamin B12 could be the mechanism behind the death of cancer cells when CD320 and LRP2 are silenced. Experiments proved otherwise.
"Our research on targeted gene silencing began in order to better understand the mechanism behind our proprietary porphyrin TCPP’s ability to selectively stain cancer cells. In the process, we learned that treatment with siRNAs targeting specific cell surface receptors, CD320 and LRP2, both of which transport vitamin B12, adversely affects cancer cell survival but not normal cells," Dr. Elzi said. "However, when the cell culture medium did not contain measurable amounts of vitamin B12, we found no difference in cell growth compared to the culture medium supplemented with vitamin B12."
"We are continuing our investigation into how and why the simultaneous knockdown of CD320 and LRP2 inhibits cancer cell growth with no apparent effect on healthy cells. Our ultimate objective is to use this discovery to develop targeted therapeutics for multiple cancers," Dr. Bauta added.
bioAffinity Technologies’ noninvasive test for early-stage lung cancer, CyPath Lung, incorporates TCPP to identify cell populations in sputum that indicate cancer is present in the lung. CyPath Lung uses flow cytometry and AI-driven automated analysis to detect signals indicative of lung cancer.