戒酒硫可以抗癌

戒酒硫是一种常用的降低酒精成瘾的药物，最近发表在Nature的研究发现戒酒硫具有抗癌作用。

来自哥本哈根丹麦肿瘤研究中心的Jiri Bartek团队通过丹麦肿瘤流行病调查，发现继续服用戒酒硫的肿瘤患者较停用戒酒硫的肿瘤患者死亡率要低。

进一步的机制研究发现，戒酒硫的代谢产物可以影响肿瘤生长相关蛋白NPL4–p97。

戒酒硫便宜而且安全，有望“老药新用”，用于抗肿瘤的治疗。

摘要：Cancer incidence is rising and this global challenge is further exacerbated by tumour resistance to available medicines. A promising approach to meet the need for improved cancer treatment is drug repurposing. Here we highlight the potential for repurposing disulfiram (also known by the trade name Antabuse), an old alcohol-aversion drug that has been shown to be effective against diverse cancer types in preclinical studies. Our nationwide epidemiological study reveals that patients who continuously used disulfiram have a lower risk of death from cancer compared to those who stopped using the drug at their diagnosis. Moreover, we identify the ditiocarb–copper complex as the metabolite of disulfiram that is responsible for its anti-cancer effects, and provide methods to detect preferential accumulation of the complex in tumours and candidate biomarkers to analyse its effect on cells and tissues. Finally, our functional and biophysical analyses reveal the molecular target of disulfiram’s tumour-suppressing effects as NPL4, an adaptor of p97 (also known as VCP) segregase, which is essential for the turnover of proteins involved in multiple regulatory and stress-response pathways in cells.

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原文PDF：Antabuse-anti-cancer-Nature2017